William Doolin

William Doolin I Clongowes 1903-1904

William Doolin (1887-1962), pioneering surgeon and editor, was a native of Dublin, who attended Clongowes in 1903-04. He graduated in medicine at UCD in 1910, qualifying as a surgeon two years later. For three years he travelled extensively and worked in London, Edinburgh and on the Continent, becoming fluent in French and German. Returning to Dublin, he became a visiting surgeon at St Vincent’s Hospital and Temple Street Children’s Hospital. His major innovative professional achievements were in the surgery of cleft palate and harelip. He was also the first to describe the treatment of acute dilatation of the stomach and paralyticileus by means of a suction tube and the first to perform the Smith-Peterson operation on a fractured hip. He became secretary and later president (1938-40) of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Interested in literature and an accomplished prose stylist, he edited the Irish Journal of Medical Science from 1925 and the Irish Medical Journal from 1952, penning numerous editorials – occasionally caustic – and reviews. He published two collections of essays on medical topics and was one of the founders of the history of medicine section of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland, holding an honorary chair in the history of medicine in UCD. He received many honours, including FRCS (Eng.), membership of the French Académie de Chirugie and honorary degrees from TCD and UCD. The Doolin Lecture, inaugurated in his memory, is delivered annually in RCSI.