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In the summer of 1972, Peter McLean created a medical history by performing Ireland's first live kidney transplant in a breakthrough that changed the lives of hundreds of patients.
However, McLean's legacy goes far beyond Ireland. As a humanitarian, he also followed the second half of his life to advance surgical education in many African countries.
Peter McLean was a proud Donegal. He was born in 1934 at Marlow, Dunfanaghi, Donegal, and was the youngest of seven children. His father passed away when Peter was six months old.
He went to a local national school and later managed to obtain a scholarship to St. Eunan University in Letterkenny. He studied medicine at the Royal Surgeon of Ireland and graduated from the Honor in 1958.
After an internship at the Jervis Street clinic, he was appointed to Hammersmith Hospital in London, where he completed general surgical training.
However, in the mid-1950s, he was still a medical student at Richmond Hospital in Dublin, but he met another doctor who had a major impact on shaping his medical path.
He first met Dr. Harold Brown at Richmond Hospital. Dr. Brown completed a complete general surgery residency training program at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. During his years in the United States, his first successful kidney transplant was performed by Irish-American surgeon Dr. Joseph Murray at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston.
“I was deeply impressed with his thoroughness, knowledge and surgical expertise,” Dr. MacLean told Mayo Clinic's. Mayo graduates Journal years later. “He (Dr. Brown) frequently mentioned the names of some of the greatest surgeons in the world: Mayo Clinic alumni Dr. John War, Oliver Beals, Jim Priestley. I have since heard many names of Mayo Clinic staff members, Dr. Gelshom Thompson, John Emmett, Olm Culp and David Utz, who have made great contributions to urology. I cultivated the strongest ambitions possible to work and learn from these great men.”
Mayo Clinic
And that was exactly what McLean was trying to do. He first trained graduate school in Ohio and then received a urology fellowship at Mayo Clinic. He trained in his speciality for five years with a group of well-known urologists. The main one was Dr. Garshom Thompson, who devised the so-called “cold punch” manipulation of transurethral prostatectomy. This procedure was later revised and became the standard procedure known as transurethral resection of prostate disease.
While at Mayo Clinic from 1965 to 1968, McLean received his Master's degree in Urology from the University of Minnesota University of Minneapolis. He later won the prestigious Edward John Noble Foundation Award at Mayo Clinic. While in the United States, he also received a fellowship from the University of Surgeons.
return
When McLean returned to Dublin in 1968 after completing his urological residency at Myo Clinic, he was the first person in the city to do a complete residency training program with that speciality. Urology was then in its early stages, with most of the practices performed by general surgeons.
“I've always considered it to be the greatest privilege of my life training at the Mayo Clinic,” McLean recalled in an interview. Mayo graduates 2007, three years before his death. “I have been surgically trained with a very high caliber, and have also learned how to communicate with people, how to think, how to submit my ideas, how to be humble, cleverly ethical and honest, and how to act for the best interests of the patients.
“I was overwhelmed by the friendlyness, generosity and sincere kindness of the entire staff. When I left, I felt that I had left a part of myself, but I wanted to put into practice what I had learned for my people back in Ireland.
Soon he tried to change it all. Upon returning to Ireland, he was appointed consultant urologist, and later a kidney transplant surgeon was appointed to Jarvis Street Hospital and Richmond Hospital.
When both hospitals were closed, he continued his work at Beaumont Hospital from 1987 to 1999.
“Live” kidney transplant
In addition to advancing his urology specialization, McLean led the development of Ireland's first kidney transplant program.
However, he founded his biggest marker in Ireland's medical history in 1972. He ran Ireland's first living donor kidney transplant operation at Jervis Street Hospital. Until then, only frozen kidneys had been transplanted in Ireland. Donor, the priest of Galway, was the patient's brother. McLean was then involved in about 3,000 such transplant surgeries.
Today, the number of kidney transplants in live donors continues to increase. The number of common organ transplants has also steadily increased for ten years, mainly due to increased awareness and consent to post-mortem organ donation. Live kidney donors also increased significantly over the years, up from 10 in 2008 to 51 in 2016. In 2017, 98 people donated organs to others after their deaths in 2016, from 77 to 98 people. (36) and heart (16).
This year was also a victory for many Irish transplant athletes who won a total of 21 medals in August in the 41st British transplant game. A group of 12 Irish transplant recipients supported by the Irish Kidney Association, ranging from 9 to 70 years old and over, won nine gold, seven silver and five bronze medals. The successful team included five liver, five kidneys and two bone marrow transplant recipients.
McLean was elected a Fellow of Royal Irish Surgeons in 1979, serving as Vice President, and later served as president from 1998 to 1998.
In 2000 he fell into the legal and political spotlight when former Taoiseach Charles Haughey, one of his most well-known patients, advised that he should not be forced to give evidence to the court for medical care, particularly kidney problems, to investigate payments to politicians. His advice was partially dismissed by Judge Moriarty. Although Housey still had to testify, he was allowed to do so under oath in his private life.
honor
McLean's 35-year career has given him many honors, posts and elected positions in local, regional and global organizations. These include the Academy of Medicine, honorary fellows from Malaysia and Singapore, and the vice-president of the International College of Surgery, a senior surgical institution that brings together all major colleges and associations around the world. He was the founder of the Irish Kidney Transplant Foundation.
Of the many honors McLean received, the one he may have enjoyed most came when his hometown county selected him as the Donegal man of the year, recognizing his “humanitarian and caring qualities in caring for the poor.”
He visited professorships to many countries in the Middle Eastern region, including Libya, Kuwait and Bahrain. While in Saudi Arabia, he began a live related kidney transplant program.
Africa
After retiring in 2003, MacLean, who changed more lives in Ireland for the better, has now improved his condition in many countries in the central, eastern and South Africa.
He contacted Surgeon Colleges (Cosecsa) in Eastern, Central and South Africa in countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Sudan, Rwanda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe and locally contacted Surgeon Colleges (Cosecsa) in the Eastern, Central and South Africa, advancing education, training, research and surgical care.
McLean passed away on September 8, 2010, just nine months after the death of his wife, Dr. Nuara Killcoin. He lay down to rest in Dhanhanagie, Colorado Donegal, near where he was born.
source: Irish Kidney Association, Beaumont Hospital Kidney Center, RCSI, and Mayo Clinic.
