DR BRIAN McGOVERN: Brian McGovern, who died in tragic circumstances on April 10th aged 47, was one of the most distinguished Irish doctors of his generation. In a little over 20 years of practice at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston, he rose to be one of the leading cardiologists in the United States with a world-wide reputation.
At his Requiem Mass, his brother Patrick, a Dublin solicitor, was approached and embraced by Dr Jeremy Ruskin, vice chairman of the MGH, who had also been Dr McGovern's original supervisor. Dr Ruskin remarked: "Brian came to me as my student in 1981, but for the past 10 years he was my teacher." Dr McGovern was shot dead by a depressed hospital employee, who then took her own life.
Dr McGovern was the co-director of the Cardiac Arrhythmia Service at both MGH and St Peter's Hospital, Albany, New York state, positions which he had occupied since 1983 and 1991 respectively.
Since 1989 he had been an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School (HMS) for which MGH is the teaching hospital.
The Cardiac Arryhthmia Service at MGH, which treats irregularity of the rhythm of the heart beat, is used extensively by cardiologists throughout the north-eastern United States.
Dr David Torchiana, chief executive of the Massachusetts General Physicians' Organisation, told the Boston Globe that "probably every cardiologist" in that region had referred patients to Dr McGovern.
Dr McGovern was also the founder of the Atrial Fibrillation Foundation, one of the world's leading centres for the study of this form of cardiac disease. At the time of his death he was chairman of the foundation.
Dr Mark Schoenfeld, president of the North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology, described Dr McGovern as "a clinical luminary, one of the prominent electrophysiologists in the country (the USA)," and that his death represented "a profound tragedy, a major loss to the medical community and to our field in particular."
A sign of the esteem in which his American colleagues held him may be taken from the fact that at NASPE's next scientific session a minute's silence will be observed in his memory, the first time this has happened at such meetings of the society.
Dr McGovern's work involved a heavy commitment to the Harvard Medical School. At the time of his death, five fellows in medicine and seven resident students from HMS worked on a daily basis with the Irish doctor and his team.
Born in Dublin in 1955 to Philip McGovern, a chartered accountant, and his wife, Josephine (nee Smyth), Dr McGovern went to MGH after a residency at Dublin's Mater Hospital and a year as a research demonstrator in physiology at UCD.
This had been preceded by an education glittering with prizes. A brilliant all-rounder at Belvedere College, where he excelled at languages as well as the sciences, he left school speaking fluent French and with a reading knowledge of Latin and Ancient Greek.
At UCD, he took first place in his finals in 1979. That year the Mater Hospital awarded him its gold medal and also its silver medal and joint first place in surgery. He also won the 1979 Reuben Harvey Prize of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI); he became an hon FRCPI in 1996.
In 1981, Harvard Medical School awarded him a fellowship and he left Ireland for Boston, where he was to spend the rest of his career.
In 1985, Dr McGovern married a colleague, Dr Anne Jennings. They had two daughters, Caitriona (16) and Deirdre (8). A close friend, the golfing writer Gary Larabee, who had also been a patient of Dr McGovern, described him as "an exemplary husband".
As a medical scholar, his productivity was phenomenal. In just 24 years after graduation, he produced solely or contributed to 76 original papers for learned journals, including the British Medical Journal, the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology of which he became a fellow in 1991; 17 full-length books and scores of medical abstracts.
He was awarded the MD of the National University of Ireland in 1987 for published work.
Many will regard his greatest achievements, however, as personal rather than professional. Dr McGovern was renowned among colleagues for his gifts of empathy, especially with patients. So many wished to pay tribute that a special website was opened for this purpose.
Dr Mark Josephson, cardiologist at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre, said that Dr McGovern was "the glue which held the (cardiac department at MGH) together." She added, in a comment to the Boston Herald: "He was a great doctor."
Brian Anthony McGovern, born Dublin December 26th, 1955, died Boston, April 10th, 2003.