Thomas James Gilmartin (1905 – 1986)
LRCP & SI LM DA FFARCS FFARCSI FRCSI (Hon)THOMAS ‘TOMMY’
GILMARTIN was born in Ballymote, County Sligo in 1905, the son of James Gilmartin JP and his wife Rita Coghlan. His mother died from puerperal fever shortly after his birth. He was educated initially by the Sisters of Saint Louis at Kiltimagh, County Mayo, then at Summerhill College, Sligo and subsequently Belvedere College, Dublin. He attended medical school at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and graduated LRCP & SI in 1929.
He then trained in anaesthetics in Birkenhead General Hospital, the Royal Southern Hospital in Liverpool, and St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, London. He returned to Dublin in 1931, where he was appointed as assistant anaesthetist in Mercer’s Hospital under the supervision of Dr P. Gaffney before returning to London for a further year. On this occasion, he worked at the Hammersmith Hospital where he gained experience with Boyle’s apparatus. He obtained the DA in 1937.
He became visiting anaesthetist to Mercer’s Hospital in 1946 and was also visiting anaesthetist to the Dublin Skin and Cancer Hospital (Hume Street) and the Dublin Dental Hospital (both of which would have been within walking distance of Mercer’s) as well as Peamount Sanatorium. Gilmartin is credited with introducing curare into anaesthetic practice in Ireland in 1945. He is reputed to have acquired a sample of the drug which was brought to Ireland from North America by the boyfriend of a staff nurse in the operating theatre of Mercer’s Hospital.
Gilmartin was involved in the development of the Diploma in Anaesthetics (DA) in Ireland which was a conjoint examination of both the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. The first examination was held in 1942, and he himself received the Irish DA in 1943. In 1945, he applied to the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland (RAMI) to form a Section of Anaesthetics. The Academy agreed to the addition of a new section provided that a committee of at least 12 anaesthetists could be formed. This committee was duly convened with Dr Thomas Percy C. Kirkpatrick as president and Tommy Gilmartin as secretary. The inaugural meeting was held in 1946 to commemorate the centenary of the discovery of anaesthesia. The main speaker was Dr Ivan Magill who delivered a lecture on ‘Current topics in anaesthetics’. Dr Gilmartin subsequently held the position of president of the section.
In 1949, he was a foundation fellow of the new Faculty of Anaesthetists of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and was granted the FFARCS by election. In 1950, he was chairman of a committee of the Irish Medical Association that produced a seminal ‘Report on the Anaesthetic Services in Ireland’. This led to better recognition of the role of the specialty in the health service and to better working conditions and remuneration for anaesthetists.
In 1959, he was a founding member and first dean (1960–1964) of the newly formed Faculty of Anaesthetists, RCSI, and was a foundation fellow (FFARCSI 1960). Whereas it had been stipulated in the standing orders of the faculty that the role of dean should be for three years only, it was decided by the board of the faculty to grant Dr Gilmartin an extra year at the end of his term as a ‘lap of honour’ in appreciation of the role he had played in its foundation. He was a member of the Council of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland (AAGBI) and subsequently vice president (1973–1975). He was awarded the John Snow Silver Medal by AAGBI in 1985 and his citation was read by Dr Bill Wren.
In 1964, the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) appointed him as lecturer in anaesthetics for a period of five years, and in 1965 he was made an associate professor of anaesthetics at College. This was the first anaesthetic professorship of any kind in the Republic of Ireland and was a significant step for the specialty. It came a year after the appointment of John Dundee as professor of anaesthetics at Queen’s University Belfast. Gilmartin received an honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (FRCSI) in 1974 and remains the only anaesthetist in Ireland to have been awarded this accolade. His citation was given by the well-known surgeon and past-president of RCSI Mr Terence Millin.
He was elected as an honorary member of the Société Française d’Anesthésie et de Réanimation (SFAR) (French Society of Anaesthesia) in 1976 and a foundation academician of the European Academy of Anaesthesiologists in September 1978. The author (J.T.) was a first-year senior house officer (SHO) in anaesthetics in Mercer’s Hospital in 1977 and worked under his supervision. Dr Gilmartin was in his seventies and coming towards the end of his career. He was polite and reserved but keen to demonstrate how to use some of the older types of anaesthetics such as trichloroethylene and methoxyflurane (halothane was the most commonly used potent inhalational agent at that time). He had particular expertise in dental anaesthesia and was, at one time, president of the Association of Dental Anaesthetists. He was deeply involved in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, was president of their graduates’ association in 1960, and was elected president of the ‘Bi’ (a student society, the ‘Biological Society’ run jointly by RCSI and RCPI) at RCSI in 1980. He retired from anaesthetics and from Mercer’s Hospital on its closure in 1983.
Tommy Gilmartin married Peggy Maiben in 1936, and they lived in a fine Georgian house at number 32 Baggot Street, Dublin. He was a member of Portmarnock Golf Club and of the Royal Irish Yacht Club. They had one son, John, who was a well-known art historian. The Gilmartin Lecture was inaugurated in his honour in 1985, with the first lecturer being Prof. John Dundee. The second lecture was delivered on 16 May 1986 by Sir Gordon Robson, but unfortunately, Prof. Gilmartin was unable to attend as he was ill. He died shortly afterwards on 22 June 1986.
In 2019, his son John left a bequest to the College of Anaesthesiologists of Ireland of a portrait of Prof. Gilmartin by Carey Clarke, copied from an original pastel by Seán Keating, and it now hangs in the boardroom at 22 Merrion Square.
REFERENCES
- Andrews H., “Gilmartin, Thomas James” in Dictionary of Irish Biography, vol. 4, Gaffikin–J., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 98–9.
- Millin T., “Citation on behalf of Thomas James Gilmartin”, Anaesthesia, 1974, 31, pp. 647–8.
- Tracey J.A., “Dr Thomas James Gilmartin”, available at RCoA (accessed 6 January 2021).
- Lectures given by Drs David Wilkinson and Des Riordan, and personal recollections.