Geoffrey Laurence Driscoll, OAM, FRCSEd, FRANZCOG, FRCOG

 

Geoffrey Laurence Driscoll was born in Hurstville, New South Wales, on 13 March 1947. During his childhood, he had poliomyelitis and was in hospital from the age of 4 years until the age of 6 years. He graduated from Cronulla High School — where he met his wife Jan — topping four subjects, with firsts in rugby and cricket, sports achievements that he modestly described as being “mainly from the bench”. He was awarded his medical degree from the University of Sydney in 1972 and spent his residency and junior registrar years at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and the Princess Alexandra Hospital.

Geoffrey was a registrar and senior registrar at the John Radcliffe and Churchill hospitals in Oxford, in 1978, where the emergence of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) piqued his interest in reproductive medicine. He was made Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1979. In 1980, he became a staff specialist in obstetrics and gynaecology at Westmead Hospital and opened the hospital’s infertility clinic. He established one of the first IVF units in New South Wales in 1983.

Geoffrey contracted chronic active hepatitis B from a needle-stick injury at Westmead Hospital and went to London to be treated at the Royal Free Hospital. After recovery, he set up an IVF unit at Westmead Hospital and a successful IVF private unit in Western Sydney. In 1988, he stopped working in obstetrics and expanded his IVF unit, making it one of the largest in NSW. In 1989, he was made Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the United Kingdom.

He left his IVF practice in 2004, but his vital contributions were to continue. At the University of New South Wales, where he was awarded a full professorship, he set up an online Master of Reproductive Medicine program.

His lifetime contribution to the development of infertility services and patient care was recognised in 2014 with a Medal of the Order of Australia.

Geoffrey was a man of enormous empathy and sympathy. He deeply cared about his patients and was loved by them. He had a great sense of humour, loved sailing, golf, food, wine and travel, and his group of friends and colleagues stretched far and wide.

He died of leukaemia on 5 October 2016. He is survived by his wife Jan, his three daughters Amanda, Leisa and Claire, and nine grandchildren.