After completing the Diploma of Public Health (London) in 1891, he did further research at Tübingen, Germany, and visited clinics in the United States of America before returning home.
Stawell returned to Australia in 1893 and began to practise at Melbourne; earlier hopes of a private income faded with the bank crash.
The scientific grounding received in the physical signs of the chest and in neurological diseases was one never to be forgotten.Stawell was elected a vice-president of the Victorian branch of the British Medical Association in 1908 and became president in 1910.
in World War I, Stawell served as Lieutenant-Colonel in charge of the medical section[1] with the 3rd Australian General Hospital at the front in 1915 but was brought back to Australia in 1916 to continue his clinical teaching and other important home service work.
Stawell became a physician to in-patients at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1919 and was also a member of the medical advisory committee to the Repatriation department of the Commonwealth.
[1] His quiet, slightly austere manner did not at first suggest his great personal charm, but among his intimates he could let his inner sense of fun have full play or talk with distinction on music or art.
An authority on children's and nervous diseases, a great clinical instructor and possibly the ablest physician in the history of Australian medicine he was honoured and loved by the whole profession.