Born in McAlester, Oklahoma on September 14, 1930, to Paul Cloeren and Tennie Ora “Gus” [Neill] MacDonald, Paul Cloeren MacDonald, Jr., grew up in north central Texas. His father was the owner/manager of the Prompt Printing Shop in Ranger, Texas. Paul attended Ranger High School, graduating in 1946 as valedictorian — an achievement that ultimately led to an academic scholarship at Southern Methodist University (SMU).

Believing that his southern accent would hold him back professionally, his mother paid for her son to take elocution lessons. The money was not misspent. Later — long before Microsoft’s PowerPoint was “born” — Dr. MacDonald swayed audiences with his oratory and dramatic, two-screen 35-mm slide presentations. In the Dallas Morning News (November 26, 1997), Dr. Kern Wildenthal (UTSW Class of 1964; Dean, 1980-1986; President of UT Southwestern, 1986-2008) described Dr. MacDonald’s oratory as having the “power and cadence and persuasiveness of a Baptist revival.”

At the age of 16, Paul entered SMU on an athletic scholarship. Later, he relinquished that award when the University granted him an academic scholarship.

While in college, he augmented his scholarship with a variety of full and part-time jobs — including a brief stint as a professional boxer, according to his successor, Norman F. Gant, Jr., M.D. (UTSW Class of 1964; Chair 1977–1983).

Graduating from SMU with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1951, Dr. MacDonald entered Southwestern Medical College in the graduating class of 1955. This was the last class to receive all their obstetrical and gynecological training under Dr. William F. Mengert — the Department’s first chair.

While attending SMU, Dr. MacDonald met Mary Sue Cook — a nursing student at Methodist Hospital in Dallas. The couple married on September 13, 1952, while Paul was a second-year medical student. The couple had three sons — Cary, Don, and S. Scott.

Dr. Donald Seldin (Chair of Department of Internal Medicine, 1952–1988) recalls Dr. MacDonald’s tenacity as a third-year medical student.

“[Paul]… became animated with the desire to do research and spent the summer working in the steaming shacks on Oak Lawn Avenue on somewhat esoteric problems of acid-base balance. This commitment to scholarship was honored by neither academic credits nor financial remuneration.”
“… It was not merely that he possessed profound intellectual gifts and displayed extraordinary effectiveness in crisply executing all his assignments. He was, in addition, loyal to the spirit of the institution, intervening on behalf of his colleagues and taking leadership in insuring [sic] that morale was high and dedication unstinting, even in the face of disheartening experimental setbacks and frustration. This third year student was a citizen of the medical school.”

After an internship at Methodist Hospital of Dallas, Dr. MacDonald served two years as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. Returning to Dallas, he accepted an offer from a general practitioner in the city.

According to Dr. Jack Pritchard, the general practitioner wanted Dr. MacDonald to obtain six months’ additional obstetrical experience — at the practitioner’s expense — before joining his family medicine practice. Unfamiliar with Dr. MacDonald’s performance as a medical student, Dr. Pritchard consulted Dr. Seldin. Receiving his hearty endorsement, the two willing accepted the trainee.

This clinical exposure whetted Dr. MacDonald’s appetite for obstetrics and gynecology, and he abandoned the thought of private practice in favor of a career in academics. After completing a three-year residency in obstetrics and gynecology under Dr. Pritchard (1957–1960), he pursued a two-year fellowship in reproductive endocrinology with Seymour Leiberman, Ph.D., at Columbia University in New York before returning to UT Southwestern in July 1962. 

During the 1960s, Dr. MacDonald and Dr. Pentti Siiteri (a Ph.D. whom he had met while at Columbia) investigated estrogen biosynthesis. Their results altered the thinking about estrogen’s role and brought both men international recognition. It also attracted young physicians who wanted to study reproductive physiology in what was the first (and in the early 1970s, only) basic research fellowship on the subject in the United States.

“Dr. MacDonald could present the most complex topic in a way that made one say to themselves, ‘Sure, why couldn’t I see that before?’ He was a magician that way.”

The basic research of the MacDonald–Siiteri laboratories were the genesis for the Center for Reproductive Biology Sciences which was established by the Board of Regents in 1970. In 1974, the Center was renamed the Cecil H. and Ida Green Center for Reproductive Biology Sciences in honor of the Greens who had endowed a chair for Dr. MacDonald.

Dr. MacDonald is remembered for his dedication to investigating some of the most complex problems in women’s health care. Why does estrogen production increase in pregnant women? What is the origin of the estrogen? What triggers human labor? Why do some women deliver prematurely? Does treating postmenopausal women with estrone increase their risk of endometrial cancer? And so on. 

Research and discovery became his life. When he took a sabbatical (1978–1979), it was to Dr. John (Jack) M. Johnston’s lab in the Department of Biochemistry where he studied lipid biochemistry and steroid biochemistry of normal and abnormal human endometrial tissue.

On the eve of the Green Center’s move to its first permanent home in the new Harry S. Moss Clinical Science Building (J), Dr. MacDonald told the Center Times (January 1977) that the Green Center’s interdisciplinary approach to research was the wave of the future. He believed that biomedical research had become so complex that it required diverse teams of experts, freely communicating, to solve the problems faced in the laboratory. And, Dr. MacDonald envisioned the Green Center as “a place where the obstetrician can speak knowledgeably with a lipid biochemist, and vice versa.” This concept was revolutionary in its day.

Leaving the administrative responsibilities of the chair behind at the end of 1976, Dr. MacDonald devoted full time to the Green Center where he pursued his research and trained pre- and post-doctoral students. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, his laboratories were prolific.

Honors and recognition came his way. In 1987, he was named to the National Institute of Medicine. And, at the Southwestern Gynecological Assembly (December 3, 1987), friends and colleagues from the medical school and community surprised Dr. MacDonald with a professorship named in his honor. Interviewed later by Ann Harrell, Dr. MacDonald recalled his astonishment. 

“I was in shock. Dozens of people have commented to me that they have never seen me speechless before. I was really surprised, and I was crying.”

(In 2000, the professorship became the Paul C. MacDonald Distinguished Chair in Obstetrics and Gynecology.)

Culminating a 42-year career in medicine and investigative research, on September 27, 1997, Dr. MacDonald became the 11th UT Southwestern faculty member to be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Two months later, he succumbed to disseminated carcinoma and passed away at his home in Dallas on November 24, 1997. He was 67 years old.

“He will be fondly remembered for his provocative insights into human reproduction and for his remarkable humanity,” wrote F. Gary Cunningham (Chair 1983–2004) in an obituary for JAMA.