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Medicine
Dr. Kevin Cahill
Tropical Disease Specialist
Kevin Cahill’s range of expertise is so vast, it almost exceeds credulity. His medical career began in 1961 when he studied tropical diseases in the slums of Calcutta, alongside Mother Teresa. He treated refugees in the Sudan, was among the first to predict the famine in Somalia, and has been caught behind lines of armed conflict in Beirut and Managua. While serving in the U.S. Navy, he was the director of Clinical and Tropical Medicine in Egypt. From 1975-81, Dr. Cahill served concurrently as the Special Assistant to the Governor for Health Affairs, Chairman of the Health Planning Commission, and Chairman of the Health Research Council of New York State. From 1981-93 he was a Senior Member of the New York City Board of Health.
Today, Cahill offers his expertise on humanitarian efforts to a number of national and international organizations, including the United Nations and the NYPD – where he is the Chief Medical Advisor for Counterterrorism. He is chairman of the Department of International Health at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, director of the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs at Fordham University, president of The Center for International Health and Cooperation, the Tropical Disease Center at Lenox Hill Hospital and a clinical professor of tropical medicine and parasitic diseases at New York University Medical School. He is also the president of the American Irish Historical Society.
He has received 25 honorary doctorate degrees and has written 29 books on a range of topics, including tropical disease, humanitarian and foreign affairs and Irish literature.
Dr. Cahill has five sons and five grandchildren. His son Chris Cahill is the editor of The Recorder, the renowned journal of the American Irish Historical Society.
Dr. Garrett FitzGerald
Pharmacology Expert
Dr. Garrett FitzGerald, a University of Pennsylvania cardiologist and a pharmacologist, was the first to predict that Vioxx and other popular drugs used to reduce the pain of arthritis could cause heart attack and stroke.
Back in 1999, FitzGerald, a leading expert in cox-2 inhibitors, showed that the use of the popular arthritis drugs was a time bomb waiting to happen.
“We were the first to predict that it would happen and that it would involve not just one but all of them. We have evidence that there is a hazard, serious but uncommon, affecting one or two percent of users,” FitzGerald said, speaking on the phone from his office at UP, where he is chairman of the university’s pharmacology department. “The real challenge is to manage the risk while treating the patient,” he continued.
FitzGerald, who is Irish-born, has also conducted studies on the cause(s) of Alzheimer’s disease. He studied medicine and pharmacology at University College Dublin. He has worked in the U.K., Germany and Nashville and from 1991-94, he served as Chairman, Department of Medicine and Experimental Therapeutics, University College Dublin. Eleven years ago he accepted his current post at the University of Pennsylvania.
He visits Ireland often to see his mother and is involved in the science initiatives there, serving on the board of Science Foundation Ireland. A fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Ireland, FitzGerald is the recipient of many honors for his work, including an honorary degree (D.Sc.) from University College Dublin, Ireland.
Dr. Michael Finegan
Tsunami Volunteer
The boy was an orphan. He had single-handedly plucked seven women from the crashing waves around him – seven women who were literally hanging on to life by a thin wire, while the waves crashed in around them. In spite of his heroic deed on December 26, the day a tsunami devastated the regions of Sri Lanka and Indonesia, the boy couldn’t overcome his feelings of guilt for not being able to save the eighth woman and her six year old son at the end of the wire. Immediately after hearing of the tragedy, Dr. Michael Finegan volunteered through Catholic Relief Services (CRS) to lessen the impact of trauma for the victims. In Sri Lanka, he talked to this boy, and others.
The scope of the tragedy proved humbling for a man already bent on dedicating himself to those less fortunate.
“People here have lost their entire families, their homes, their foundation of security and society,” said Dr. Finegan. “I felt it was my responsibility to volunteer my training and experience to help people deal with such an enormous loss, and recover from what will, no doubt, be long-term psychological scarring.”
Dr. Finegan also worked extensively with children while in Sri Lanka. Personally aware of the difficulty children may have expressing their grief following a catastrophe on the scale of the tsunami, Dr. Finegan ordered 20,000 coloring books and crayon kits through CRS, so that the tens of thousands of children affected might have an outlet.
Finegan’s father died when Michael was 12, and displaying the usual symptoms of trauma he become a difficulty for his mother. He was sent to De La Salle Military Academy. Following the example of one of its spiritual leaders, Father James Cooney, Finegan learned the value of giving back to the community at large. He contends that, “it’s really the people behind me who should be honored.”
Dr. Finegan has presented and written on a number of topics, including Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), adolescent suicide and mob violence. He is an expert in police psychology and has trained officers at the Maryland State Police Department in a variety of topics, including hostage negotiations. He also leads a team of 18 psychologists in providing counseling to officers who have experienced trauma through their jobs.
He has been interviewed numerous times on television for his expertise in the field of psychology.
Dr. Finegan is third-generation Irish-American. He lives in Salisbury, Maryland with his wife and two children.
Dr. Timothy Flanigan
Treating AIDS
While Timothy Flanigan was in medical school in the early ’80s, HIV and AIDS were still unnamed afflictions. When he began his medical career, though finally named, the shroud of mystery concerning the viruses had not yet been lifted. By the time that President Ronald Reagan first publicly addressed the issue, Dr. Flanigan was already on the board of directors for the AIDS Housing Council, and was enmeshed in what would become the main focus of his career. Flanigan’s interest in AIDS treatment led to his involvement in tropical disease research at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. However, during this time Flanigan felt he was spending too much time in the laboratory.
For the good doctor, “the fun of medicine is taking care of the folks.”
He later transferred to Brown University’s medical school, where he became a professor and director of the Samuel and Esther Chester Immunology Center at The Miriam Hospital and where he has spearheaded initiatives in HIV primary care, especially among women and prison inmates.
According to Timothy Flanigan, medical treatment only scratches the surface of an AIDS patient’s needs. He believes in combining clinical care, research and psychological therapy. For this reason, he has made considerable efforts to treat the whole person, and not just their illness. He notes that domestic abuse and substance abuse often play a stronger role in the lives of infected women, and therefore they have weaker support systems. Flanigan leads an effort to bring routine gynecological care and HIV therapy to women inmates at Rhode Island’s Adult Correctional Institution (ACI), both during incarceration and after release. Some of the women he treats have never had a routine gynecological exam.
Dr. Flanigan has also worked tirelessly with RISE and STARKIDS, two local programs that place and support the children of incarcerated mothers in small, effective, private schools, with the help of a sponsor. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation gave Dr. Flanigan the Community Health Leadership Program award for his efforts. Of 387 nominees, he was one of 10 awarded. A $95,000 three-year grant accompanied the honor, which Dr. Flanigan used to expand the programs at the Immunology Center. Last year, he also received an honorary doctorate degree from Salve Regina University.
Dr. Flanigan is fourth-generation Irish-American, with roots tracing back to East Newcastle.
Dr. Daniel Kelly
Brain Surgeon
For doctors and civilians alike, neurosurgery conjures up images of complication. It involves an area of our body that we’d rather have left alone, and when thinking about the practitioners of this delicate science, one has a mingled sense of awe and fear. Though a 20-year veteran of the field, Dr. Daniel Kelly is not exempt from this feeling:
“On the one hand, neurosurgery provides a degree of immediate gratification,” Dr. Kelly explained. “However, one also has to be able to handle the surgical failures that occur.”
Dr. Kelly is the director of the UCLA Pituitary Tumor and Neuroendocrine Program, and he has worked extensively on new methods of brain surgery that would limit these “failures,” such as loss of sight and other neurological disorders. His methods, which involve operating on the brain without opening up the skull, have proven less invasive, providing for fewer post-operative complications and a speedier recovery time. Dr. Kelly is also focused on discovering the cause of hormonal abnormalities following 30-40 percent of severe head injuries, and is the principal investigator for a five-year study on the issue, funded by the National Institutes of Health. He has written or co-written over 40 peer-reviewed publications and 10 book chapters on a variety of topics relating to neurosurgery, and is on the editorial board of the journal Neurosurgery. He is also an active member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, the Congress of Neurological Surgeons and the Pituitary Society.
Dr. Kelly is also invested in educating future neurosurgeons, both in the United States and in developing countries. As Vice-Chief of Clinical Affairs at UCLA School of Medicine, he is heavily involved in the training of UCLA Neurosurgery Residents at both UCLA and Harbor-UCLA Medical Centers. He is also the vice-president of the Foundation for International Education in Neurological Surgery (FIENS), an organization dedicated to establishing and overseeing programs of neurosurgical study abroad. FIENS has sites in Honduras, Peru, Ghana, Kenya, India, Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Dr. Kelly is fifth-generation Irish-American. His family arrived in the U.S. in the early 1800’s, lived in Tennessee and then moved to Winnsboro, Texas. His wife Marta is from Madrid and they have seven-year-old twin daughters.
Dr. Paula Moynahan
Reconstructive Surgery Expert
While building a successful cosmetic surgery practice in New York and Connecticut, Dr. Paula Moynahan has also found time to teach doctors reconstructive surgery in Pakistan and China and to head a cause that helps needy and orphaned children.
A past president of the New York Society of Plastic Surgeons, Dr. Moynahan received the Pakistan League of America Appreciation Award in honor of her work teaching Pakistani doctors modern cosmetic surgical techniques to alleviate damage from scars. She was a member of the Women’s Physician Delegation to the People’s Republic of China’s Citizen-Ambassador Program.
One of the few women to have achieved double board certification from the American Board of Surgery (ABS) and the American Board of Plastic Surgery (ABPS) Dr. Moynahan is a much sought-after media expert. She was featured in a front-page story in USA Today and in an MSNBC television documentary entitled “Investigating Extreme Plastic Surgery” as the voice of reason and medical ethics. She has been a guest lecturer at numerous medical colleges, museums, U.N. conferences, congregations and related organizations throughout the U.S. She is also the author of Dr. Paula Moynahan’s Cosmetic Surgery for Women.
Dr. Moynahan was educated in Roman Catholic schools. She is a graduate of the College of Mount Saint Vincent in Riverdale, New York, and the Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She is affiliated with Lenox Hill Hospital in New York and St. Mary’s Hospital and Waterbury Hospital in Waterbury.
Dr. Moynahan never met her Irish grandparents. Her father, one of nine children, was 12 when his parents died. He had to leave school and work in a factory job. Later, he joined the police force and became an officer in Waterbury, Connecticut.
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