Irish doctor and woman shot dead in US hospital

A PROMINENT Irish cardiologist was one of two people shot dead yesterday at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Dr Brian McGovern and an unidentified woman who worked at the hospital were taken to the emergency room, but both were pronounced dead.

Neither police nor hospital officials would comment on a motive for the shooting. Although they would not confirm that the double shooting was a murder-suicide, police said they were not seeking any suspects.

“We don’t believe there was anyone else involved,” said police spokeswoman Mariellen Burns.

The shooting took place in a small office in the hospital’s Cardiac Arrhythmia Centre and Electrophysiology Lab, where Dr McGovern worked, according to Dr Peter Slavin, president of the hospital.

Police said the two were alone in a small office at the time.

Ms Burns said several shots were fired from a handgun, which police later recovered The woman was not immediately named as saying her family had not been notified. Hospital officials also declined to release any details about her or her job at the hospital. They would not say if she worked with Dr McGovern.

Dr McGovern, 47, was co-director of the hospital’s Cardiac Arrhythmia Service. He was also an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

He wrote more than 100 articles in professional journals. He was also chairman of the Atrial Fibrillation Foundation, created by patients and physicians interested in the disease to encourage research.

“He was an outgoing and friendly person. He had a nice Irish brogue and a twinkle in his eye,” said David Torchiana, chief executive and chairman of the Massachusetts General Physicians Organisation.

Dr Slavin said Dr McGovern was married to a doctor who worked elsewhere with two young daughters.

“Not only is this a very difficult episode, a tragic episode for them, it's a very difficult episode for the entire MGH community,” he said.

Dr Slavin said Dr McGovern was a “very well-respected, well-regarded” physician at MGH, where he had worked for more than 20 years.

Dr McGovern graduated from UCD in 1979. He began postgraduate training at MGH in 1981.