Professor Edward (Eddie) Guiney
Born: January 31st, 1931
Died: April 9th, 2018
Professor Edward (Eddie) Guiney, a distinguished paediatric surgeon, died in Dublin on April 9th. He was 87.
Born in Dublin, he was educated at Belvedere College and UCD. He graduated MB with first class honours and began his surgical training at St Vincent’s Hospital, where he worked under and admired Prof Patrick Fitzgerald. He spent two years at University College Hospital Galway.
He then went on to have training in vascular surgery at StThomas’s Hospital, London and the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston; both were appointments of significance. On his appointment to Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, in Crumlin, Dublin, in 1956 he went to work under Prof Peter Rickham at the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool, for a year. He and Prof Rickman developed a long-standing mutual admiration.
He was appointed to the staff of the Children’s Hospital, Temple Street and the National Children’s Hospital, Harcourt Street. He was a prodigious worker and served all his institutions with unstinting energy and loyalty. He valued and practiced close collegiality. The trainees appreciated him because he made clear what was expected of them and he was an exemplary, highly skilled operating surgeon in the delicate tissues of premature infants.
Bucking a contemporary trend, he kept up his research interest when he became a consultant and did all he could to establish a paediatric liver transplant unit in Dublin. He began an experimental programme in pigs and achieved a world first when a sow with a transplanted liver gave birth to a litter.
Spina bifida
In the 1960s, Ireland had the highest incidence of spina bifida and hydrocephalus in the developed world and later, with Prof Ray Fitzgerald, he looked after this large group of patients with dedication; continuity of care and his availability being key.
He was elected president of the International Association for the Research into Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus. He was elected president of the Irish Paediatric Association and of the British Association of Paediatrician Surgeons, despite the fact that Ireland had some five votes out of an electorate of nearly 90.
He took an active part in the management of all his institutions and believed that the saddest day of his professional life was when, after three years’ negotiation, the proposed merger of the National Children’s Hospital, Harcourt Street and Our Lady’s Hospital fell through on the grounds of possible future ethical differences and the issue of chairmanship of the combined institutions.
He was appointed professor of paediatric surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 1993 and the College subsequently instituted an annual teaching award in his name. Perhaps the peak of a distinguished career was his appointment as professor of paediatric research, a Chair sponsored by University College Dublin and the Children’s Research Centre, Crumlin.
He met and married Dr Sheila McNamara in 1962, when she was a trainee anaesthetist in Boston. Sheila died in 2006. He is survived by his three children; Ed, the Oscar-nominated film producer; Mike, a consultant radiologist, and his daughter, Carina, along with three grandchildren. He is also survived by his brother Fr John Guiney SJ.