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Professor Freddie Wood RENOWNED HEART SURGEON FOR ALMOST 30 YEARS, PROFESSOR FREDDIE WOOD TRANSFORMED CARDIAC SURGERY AND HEART AND LUNG TRANSPLANT SURGERY
Professor Freddie Wood RCSI Fellow (1975)
Professor AE (Freddie) Wood graduated from University College Dublin in 1971 and obtained FRCSI in 1975. He trained in Cardiothoracic Surgery first in Dublin, then in the Royal Victoria Hospital Belfast in the late 1970s during the Troubles before completing his training in the Hospital for Sick Children Toronto. He was appointed to the Mater Hospital in 1983, and Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin in 1985 pioneering complex infant congenital heart surgery and reparative valve surgery. With the late Maurice Neligan he pioneered heart transplantation in 1985. From 1999 to 2010 he served as Director of Heart & Lung Transplantation at the Mater Hospital and led the development of the Lung Transplantation Programme culminating in successful lung 30
transplantation in 2005. He served on the Council of RCSI in Ireland from 2000 to 2014 and was the first Chairman of Governance in 2008, as well as the Chair of the Finance Committee. He retired from the Mater Hospital and Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in autumn 2010. Between 2011 and 2013, Professor Wood was Consultant CardioThoracic Surgeon in Congenital Heart Disease to the Royal Victoria Hospital Belfast to direct, manage, mentor and provide surgery whilst a solution for its all island provision was finalised. He served as President of the Medical Council from June 2013-2018 during which time he raised concerns about physician health and wellbeing. Now he spends time teaching anatomy as a Surgeon Prosector in the Department of Anatomy RCSI.
When and where are you happiest? In the operating room operating on a newborn baby with complex heart disease using profound hypothermia and circulatory arrest or performing and managing a heart or lung transplantreal life applications of science and surgical skill. What is your ideal evening? Sharing good burgundy with great food and conversation with close friends after a game of bridge which I have only recently taken up. If you could research and write a book on any subject, what would it be? Probably the history of Thoracic and Cardiac Surgery with particular reference to the island of Ireland and Irish surgeons both here and abroad who contributed to the specialty. What relaxes you most? Going for a long run (regrettably now much shorter at 73 years) or a long hike/ climb in the mountains. What is your greatest fear? Drowning or being caught in a crevasse and freezing to death. When did you decide you wanted to become a surgeon? At 15, I decided to try and become a doctor hoping to become a surgeon. I liked fixing things and wanted to help people. In late 1967, the first heart transplant was performed, I had just started in my second medical year and I was fascinated. Then, in autumn 1968, I was privileged to hear Christian Barnard speak in St Vincent’s Hospital when he visited Ireland on the invitation of Dr John
O’Connell, TD later to be Minister of Health. My goal was set. Would you have any advice for your younger self? Go a bit slower. Qualify in something else other than surgery such as law, economics, education or regulation. Have the ability to change career mid-career. How do you have fun? Sail competitively, hill walk, alpine trek/climb. Where would you be if you decided not to become a surgeon? Probably a barrister. The research, attention to detail and the cut and thrust of the courtroom I find fascinating. In what ways do surgeons struggle and what issues do surgeons today face? Now more than ever surgeons’ outcomes are being scrutinised. An active, progressive surgeon over three decades of practice can expect to be litigated at least once and possibly appear in the High Court, attend the Coroner’s Court, be complained about to the Medical Council, have a HSE-instigated Serious Adverse Event Inquiry and lastly be the subject of a HIQA investigation. I have had all of these to contend with except the last but I expect there will be more instances in the profession and clinicians and surgeons will have to endure them. Surgeons will need confidential and counselling support that is independent of employment or college. It is important that surgeons so challenged are not lost to the profession.
