Gerald (Gerry) Edwards FRCSI, who died on June 17th at the age of 65 after a long illness, played golf and saw his last patient days before his death.
The way in which he tackled that illness was typical of a man for whom the phrase "he lived life to the full" was no cliche.
In his profession as a plastic surgeon - he was most associated with Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin, Dublin, where he was a consultant - he was known as a dedicated worker and a kind and generous man.
One of his fondest memories was of attending the confirmation of a boy who had been very disfigured and who had required detailed reconstructive surgery. That occasion was the first on which the boy allowed himself to be photographed.
While he performed cosmetic surgery, there is no doubt that his first love was reconstructive surgery.
He was born in Sutton, Co Dublin, in 1933, and lived there all his life, with absences for training. (He and his wife lived in four houses - but always in Sutton.) He was christened Gerald Ernest Edwards but was known throughout his life as Gerry.
His father was Percy Edwards, an engineer, and his mother was Florence Ackermann, through whom he inherited Prussian blood. The family had an interest in a boatyard in Malahide for a time.
He played rugby with the local club, Suttonians. His rugby playing brought him into conflict with the Christian Brothers School in Sutton, where he was a pupil, which did not appreciate his interest in a "foreign" game.
The Christian Brothers failed to dim his interest in rugby, however, and he was later hooker on the Royal College of Surgeons rugby team. Academically, he performed exceptionally well there.
He later trained in plastic surgery in Roehampton in London. It was after his return from London that he met Ita McGowan, a theatre nurse in the Meath Hospital, whom he married in 1966.
They had four children: Sharon, a nurse; Mark, an accountant; Cathriona, an events manager, and Gearoid who works in marketing.
He loved sailing, whether in small boats or on a yacht which his father owned for a time. Fellow students at the Royal College of Surgeons recall sailing with him on the yacht and his willingness to put himself out to give them lifts in his father's Humber Hawk car.
His new wife did not like the water as much as he did, so he gave up sailing for golf which became a shared passion for the rest of their lives.
He served as captain of Portmarnock Golf Club and was on its committee for years. He worked as medical officer to Carrolls Irish Open on four occasions when it was held in Portmarnock. So great was his love of golf and so great, too, was his determination, that he played golf on the Saturday before he died, despite the effects of his illness which he would not allow to dominate him.
Shortly before, he and his wife had spent a wonderful week at Mount Juliet and played golf on three of their five days there.
When he was in his fifties he achieved a long-standing ambition when he learned to fly and got his pilot's licence.
As a plastic surgeon he dealt with the aftermath, not only of horrific events in Ireland, but also of disasters abroad.
These included the Dublin and Monaghan bombings in 1974 in which 33 people died and 250 were injured; the Stardust fire in 1981 which killed 48 people and injured 160; and the train crash and gas explosion in the Ural Mountains in the Soviet Union in 1989 in which hundreds of people died and nearly a thousand were injured.
His disaster plan was put into effect at Jervis Street Hospital at the time of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. He said later that it had worked well except that it had not taken sufficient account of the demands of coping with visitors and relatives. This was amended in subsequent versions of the plan.
He was among the doctors and other medics who flew to the Urals in the aftermath of the terrible disaster there and stayed in touch with local doctors for some years afterwards.
He was also called upon frequently as an expert witness on both sides in medical litigation cases.
He was a founder member of the Irish Association of Plastic Surgery.
Colleagues remember him as a gentleman and a very good teacher who was kind to his patients and keen to do his best for them. As he did on the Monday before his death, when he saw a patient and was himself taken to hospital immediately afterwards.
Gerald E Edwards FRCSI: born l933; died June, 1999.