Distinguished medic with Trinity College and the UN

Peter Brontë Gatenby, who has died aged 91, was the first fulltime professor of medicine at Trinity College Dublin and director of the United Nations medical service.

Born in Dublin, he was the son of James Brontë Gatenby from New Zealand and Enid (Molly) Meade from a well-known Dublin family. His father was professor of zoology at Trinity and he was educated at Sandford Park School and St Andrew’s College.

He graduated in medicine from TCD in 1946 and in 1953 joined the staff of Dr Steevens' Hospital as consultant physician. Four years later he was also appointed consultant physician to the Meath Hospital. In addition he served as visiting physician to the Rotunda. He married Yvette Jeanne Bonnet, a French artist and musician, in 1951 and they had two children, Robin and Odette.

In 1957 he became involved in the prolonged process to bring together the small voluntary hospitals associated with Trinity. This eventually led to their amalgamation in the two new major teaching hospitals, St James’s and Tallaght.

In 1960 he was appointed to the first full-time chair of medicine in Trinity, meagrely resourced at the time. In the same year he was awarded a Rockefeller travelling fellowship to the United States.

His own research concentrated on anaemia in pregnancy and he published seminal papers in leading journals such as the Lancet and the British Medical Journal.

Gatenby was a superb bedside teacher and students from all the Dublin medical schools flocked to his teaching sessions at Dr Steevens’ Hospital.

In 1969 he was awarded a World Health Organisation fellowship to visit leading haematological centres in France and in 1972 he spent time as a visiting professor in New York. He also became familiar with the challenges of medicine in Third World countries and in 1966 and 1970 he was a WHO consultant and visiting professor of medicine in India.

Conflict and famine

In 1974 he took up the position of medical director of the UN medical service in New York, where his duties involved the supervision of the medical services in UN missions and entailed frequent travel to areas of conflict and famine.

In 1982, he moved to Rome, where he was chief medical officer of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. On retirement in 1987 he returned to Dublin, though he took on another UN post in the former Yugoslavia in 1994.

In retirement he continued to support the development of the Trinity medical school, which, in 2002, established the Peter Gatenby prize “in recognition of his selfless commitment and contribution to the school of medicine”.

He was proud of his family connection with the Brontë family, being descended from a brother of Patrick Brontë, father of Charlotte, Emily and Anne. Despite his many achievements he was understated and self-effacing. Humorous and a great raconteur, he got on well with people irrespective of culture and background. He is survived by his son Robin, his sister Jenny and six grandchildren.