Dr. Leonard Edward Laufe

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DR. LEONARD LAUFE Leading obstetrician - gynecologist

His family and friends described him as an idealist, a pioneer, a genius, and, above all, a caring and compassionate man. But for a brief time in his career, Dr. Leonard Laufe faced death threats and was embroiled in controversy. In 1974, the chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Western Pennsylvania Hospital performed a legal, late-term abortion that triggered a seven-day coroner's inquest to determine if the fetus had died before delivery or if death occurred minutes after birth. The proceedings generated daily headlines, but the coroner's jury took less than an hour to decide that the baby had been stillborn, preempting possible charges against the doctor.

"It was absolutely devastating," said Symoine Kamin Laufe, his wife of 52 years. "But he didn't backtrack on his conviction that a woman has a right to choose."

Dr. Laufe, 73, died Saturday in San Antonio. He had been housebound for a decade, suffering from multiple sclerosis. Services were held yesterday at Rodef Shalom Congregation and interment was at West View Cemetery. Dr. Laufe resigned from West Penn in 1975, having helped establish its residency program in obstetrics and gynecology. He decided to concentrate on family planning medicine in developing countries rather than continue his successful private practice. He also directed a fertility research program at Research Triangle Park, N.C., and was a professor at Duke University School of Medicine before a professorship at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.

His strong beliefs about women's health issues grew when he accepted an invitation from International Planned Parenthood to start clinics in Bangladesh for rape victims of the 1971 battles between that country and Pakistan. "He was extremely brave and advanced for his time in his thinking about women's issues in abortion and family planning," said Don Collins of Washington, D.C., Dr. Laufe's colleague in international projects. "He was an expert, a genius, and had great courage."

Dr. Laufe was also mechanically adept, inventing three types of obstetrical forceps and writing two classic textbooks on those tools. He demonstrated surgical techniques all over the world, was a pioneer researcher in newborn respiratory distress syndrome, and wrote more than 70 papers. Although he retired in 1986, medical residents continued to visit Dr. Laufe's home for coffee, dessert and seminars. Lawyers sought his expertise in their malpractice cases involving forceps, sending him videos to view at home. They took depositions from him in his living room, which was decorated with mannequins and instruments for demonstrations. Because he had lost the use of his writing hand due to the neurological disease, he dictated to his wife an update of a textbook. He loved studying forceps and collected antique instruments and old textbooks devoted to obstetrics and gynecology.

Combining work and home life was not unusual for Dr. Laufe. When his children were in middle school, they were already learning about their father's work. "I had the smallest head in the house, so for the textbook illustrator, I would get on the floor and my father would show on my head the appropriate placement of the forceps," said his youngest daughter, lawyer Jenny Laufe Gerrard. She and her sister, Lucy Laufe, would come home from school wondering whom they'd find at their dinner table; their parents loved entertaining visiting doctors and students from all over the world. "My oldest daughter is an anthropologist, and she says her interest in other cultures came from our dining room table," said Symoine Laufe, who has a master's degree in biology.

The doctor held a bachelor's degree in science from the University of Pittsburgh and graduated from the University of Louisville School of Medicine in 1949. He returned to Pittsburgh for an internship at Mercy Hospital and a residency at Magee-Womens Hospital. He interrupted his training to become a captain in the Army Medical Corps, performing triage work in front-line aid stations in Korea. He returned to complete residency and decided to do a fellowship in pelvic cancer in Stockholm, Sweden.

"I said to him, you can use a sea voyage to rest up" while making his way to the fellowship, his wife recalled. That was why Dr. Laufe was on the ship Stockholm when it collided with the Italian liner Andrea Doria off Nantucket Island, Mass., on July 25, 1956. "He was sitting at the bar and was thrown all the way across the room," Gerrard said. His chair was hurled through a door and he clung to the door jamb. When the lurching settled, he and other doctors aboard offered their services, patching' up the injured and scribbling notes on bandages and castss so future caregivers would know what they had done.

After forceps, Dr. Laufe's favorite hobby was fishing. His consultation rooms were covered with mounted trophies of his catches. But most remember him for his wisdom. "He was always there when you needed advice, and his advice was frequently perfect," Collins said. "He was idealistic," said Sidney Stark of Squirrel Hill, a family friend for 40 years. "He wanted to and did leave the world a better place than he found it."

Dr. Laufe is survived by his wife; daughters Lucy E. Laufe and Jenny Laufe Gerrard; sister Esther Laufe Illson; and three granddaughters.

June 4, 1998, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania · Page 29