Top Irish doctor dies in hospital shooting

Two people, including a prominent Irish cardiologist, were shot dead 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 yesterday.

Police would not immediately confirm the double shooting was a murder-suicide, but said they were not seeking any suspects. Several shots were fired from a handgun found in the office, they said.

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

Police said the two were alone in a small office off the lab’s main area at the time.

Police spokeswoman Mariellen Burns said several shots were fired from a handgun, which police later recovered in the office where the shooting took place.

Police did not immediately release the identity of the woman, saying her family had not yet been notified. Hospital officials also declined to release details about her or her job at the hospital. They would not say if she worked with McGovern.

McGovern, 47, was co-director of the hospital’s Cardiac Arrhythmia Service. His speciality was treating patients with disturbances of the heart rhythm. He was also an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

He wrote more than 100 articles published in professional journals, many focusing on arrhythmia management. 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.

Slavin said McGovern was married to a doctor who did not work at MGH, and had two young daughters.