Brendan Patrick Rooney, Professor Emeritus of Anatomy of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, died suddenly at home in Clondalkin on May 22nd. Brendan was born in December 1920 in Belfast. Two years later, at a time of great community tension, the family left Belfast and Brendan's father, a much decorated veteran of the first World War who had survived the Battle of the Somme, settled in Meath as a farmer.
Brendan attended the local Christian Brothers school in Kells and St Finian's College, Mullingar. He then entered Maynooth, originally to study for the pristhood, but after taking his BA he obtained a job with the Folklore Commission. He subsequently took an MA in Celtic Studies in University College Dublin, and then was admitted to UCD medical school from where he graduated MB, BCh, BAO in 1953. He interned at the Brooklyn Hospital, New York, before working for three-and-a-half years in England and Wales, being admitted as a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1956.
Brendan returned to Ireland in 1958 as clinical tutor and registrar in general surgery at Galway Regional Hospital and in October 1959 he was appointed county surgeon in Kildare. He quickly earned a reputation as an excellent surgeon and it was rather to the surprise of his colleagues when the pull of academic life drew him to take up a lectureship in anatomy in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in October 1960. In 1968 he was appointed reader, and when George Irvine retired in 1969 Brendan was appointed to the professorship. He held this post for 18 years until his retirement in December 1987. He was appointed professor emeritus in February 1988 and surgeon prosector in 1991, a post which he held until he died.
These are the bare facts of Brendan Rooney's professional life, but they convey little of his personality or his contribution to the college. There are students worldwide who will remember him as a teacher of clinical anatomy. At a time when students in many medical schools were expected to learn detail irrelevant for most medical practitioners, Brendan made sure that the emphasis in RCSI was on practical clinical anatomy. He was a meticulous administrator. His examination procedures were faultless: efficient, economical of effort and without fuss and his programmes for postgraduate courses have required very little subsequent modification. In terms of the postgraduate activities of the college, Brendan made a signal contribution in establishing the overseas courses and examinations.
The marking scheme for the Primary Fellowship was in large measure his, and it required very little modification when the format of the examination was changed some years ago. But probably his most significant administrative work was with multiple choice examinations used throughout the college. The computer programme for the correction and analysis of multiple choice questions was produced by him in 1971. This was the first in any of the surgical royal colleges and, without it, it is unlikely that the college could have developed its postgraduate examinations to the extent that it has. All this work was done with judgment and attention to detail, but, as is often the way with institutions, it was rather taken for granted.
As a colleague, Brendan's scruples could sometimes get the better of him. His decision-making was usually followed by a prolonged period of intense soulsearching which led him into the most tortuous mental processes. It is not that he was indecisive - far from it - but that he went over each decision repeatedly in his mind afterwards. This characteristic was both endearing and infuriating. He never lost sight of the principal reasons why anatomy has to be known - the structural basis of diagnosis and the linguistic basis of medical communication - and he was not one to "sink" a student for an ignorance of academic knowledge of little practical value. Students did not always perceive this benevolence, and many found his manner offputting, but those of us who examined with him came quickly to realise that whatever the manner, the judgment was sound.
As a part-time surgeon prosector he seemed to relax a little, having been able to shed the burden of administration - a burden made all the heavier by his painstaking conscientiousness. Students in the anatomy room either liked his style, or they didn't, but they realised that if they accepted him as he was, they could learn much from his experience. In recognition of this, and in Brendan's memory, the students have made a donation to support an annual prize for the best demonstrator.
Brendan's professional activity was one aspect of his life, but no one who knew him, even a little, could have been left in any doubt that home life came first, and little or nothing could postpone or cancel the family tours of France each summer. In fact, he died two days before Maureen and he were due to set out once again. He was an enthusiastic cyclist and swimmer, an accomplished linguist fluent in Irish, French and German, and he had recently taken up Japanese. He was a devout Christian and an ardent republican who was unfailingly loyal to the incoming Sassenach who succeeded him. All his interests, though, were subservient to the most important treasures of all: his family. His wife Maureen, daughters Maeve and Eithne and son Brendan have lost a devoted husband and father. The college has lost an outstanding servant and his colleagues a kind and thoughtful friend. R.C. and S.M.