The death took place recently in New York of Dr Marie Murnane, late of Belper, Tara, Co Meath.
The daughter of Dr Alice Murnane and the late Dr Jack Murnane of Drumree (former medical officer for the Dunsany, Kilmessan Dispensary District), she was educated in St Michael's Loreto Convent, Navan. She was a medical graduate of University College Dublin.
Following graduation she spent a year as a house surgeon in St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin, and then left Ireland in 1960 to become a surgical intern at Bellevue, New York University Hospital. It is interesting to recall that when she left Ireland, 33 of her classmates also boarded the "turbo-prop" bound for this New World.
Bellevue was an old hospital which served the poor of New York. Dr Murnane was the first female resident in the surgical area in this hospital. While at Bellvue as a resident assigned to the emergency room, she rode the ambulances and experienced the seamy side of life in New York, being first on the scene with police for fires, robberies, mafia and gangland slayings and suicides.
She became a resident in rehabilitation under Dr Howard Rusk and then decided she would become an orthopaedic surgeon, even though there were only four female orthopaedists in the US at that time.
Having passed the American Board of Ortho Surgery examination, she became a member of AAIS, then a Fellow of the ACS and International College of Surgeons as well as the New York Academy of Medicine.
Following these successes she obtained a Master of Surgery. She worked as a full-time attending orthopaedic surgeon and was subsequently made Assistant Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at the State University of New York. She spent a number of years teaching both orthopaedics and rehabilitation to young residents, helping them to fulfil their ambitions to become orthopaedic surgeons.
She is survived by her mother, her brother David and sisters Rene, Patricia and Esther, sister-in-law Mary, brother-in-law Bill, nieces, nephews and grandnieces.
She never lost touch with Ireland and visited regularly, spending last Christmas with her mother in Drumree.
After cremation in New York, her ashes were taken back to Ireland. The funeral Mass was in Dunsany Church and her ashes were laid to rest in the adjoining cemetery.
B.M.