Surgical innovator and educator, Professor Oscar Traynor FRCSI was honoured at a recent reception marking his retirement. We were delighted to have the opportunity to catch up with Prof. Traynor who shared his insights into the evolution of surgical practice and training as well as his ‘to-do’ list for retirement.

Some people retire with no concrete plans for the future, but this certainly isn’t the case for Prof. Oscar Traynor, who already intends to undertake a project close to his heart. “My namesake, my grandfather Oscar Traynor was a revolutionary who took part in the Easter Rising in 1916, the War of Independence and later became a leading Fianna Fáil politician who held the post of Minister of Defence during World War II before later becoming Minister for Justice in the 1950s,” shares Oscar. “He was part of the garrison stationed in the Metropole Hotel beside the General Post Office during the Rising which led to his internment at Knutsford Prison and subsequently Frongoch after the rebellion failed. When he was released, he worked on the printing of the An tÓglach publication during the War of Independence. But when the Civil War broke out, he was once again imprisoned as he was anti-treaty,” Oscar explains. “The fact he was locked up during the Civil War probably was positive in some respects - it smoothed his pathway into politics, first as a Sinn Féin TD but then as a Fianna Fáil member. I like to joke I come from a long line of criminals but I’m really looking forward to researching more and unearthing more stories about my grandfather!”

Rebels aside, Prof. Traynor’s family lineage doesn’t include any doctors or indeed surgeons. “There were no medics in the family and quite frankly, when I was growing up, I didn’t have any aspirations to become a doctor either,” shares Oscar. “All I wanted was to be an airline pilot, and I had my heart set on it. The two options open to me were to join Aer Lingus as a trainee pilot or join the Defence Forces as a cadet. But it just so happened that in 1968 as I prepared to sit my leaving certificate, neither organisation was recruiting.” An off-the-cuff suggestion by a family member led Oscar to apply for medicine - “a case of giving it a go rather than really wanting to study it” he reflects ruefully.

“The first couple of years in the classroom didn’t inspire any real passion for medicine or surgery, but everything changed once I experienced the clinical setting from third year onwards. I loved working with patients and while I enjoyed clinical medicine, surgery really appealed to me. Perhaps it is in part due to my temperament or personality, but I was attracted to the efficiency of surgery – you identify the problem, you address the problem, you solve the problem!”

After graduating from UCD in 1974, Oscar applied to RCSI for what was then known as the Dublin Region Pre-Fellowship Training Programme in Surgery – a precursor to modern-day Core Surgical Training. “I had enjoyed most of the surgical specialties I rotated through but found myself drawn to general surgery. As was the norm those days, after four years of training in Dublin, I went abroad for further training,” he recalls. “I found myself at Hammersmith Hospital in London where I was lucky enough to work under Prof. Les Blumgart, who had recently been appointed Professor of Surgery at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School and a consultant at Hammersmith. Prof. Blumgart is now recognised as one of the world pioneers in HPB surgery and at the time I worked with him he was the only liver surgeon in Ireland and the UK. I was a young, impressionable surgical trainee and found it incredibly exciting – it was truly ground-breaking and cutting-edge. Les became a real mentor to me and really informed my passion for liver, pancreas and complex biliary surgery.”

In 1981, Oscar headed stateside to complete his research year at the Mayo Clinic before returning to Dublin to complete his surgical training. “At this time, liver transplantation was becoming more mainstream in other countries, and I realised that I would need to go abroad again to gain further training in transplantation.” Junior certificate level French did not deter Oscar who set out to Paris where he spent a year training under Prof. Henri Bismuth, who was the first surgeon in France to launch a hepatic transplantation programme. “I persevered with the language before returning to Dublin, where I was appointed as a consultant in St. Vincent’s in the early months of 1987,” shares Oscar.

St. Vincent’s had secured approval from the then Department of Health to establish the first liver transplantation programme in Ireland and Prof. Traynor was tasked with getting the scheme up and running, along with colleagues Mr Gerry Mc Entee and Professor John Hegarty. “It took several years before we were in a position to roll out the programme,” Oscar says. “One of the obvious challenges was ensuring that the team was adequately trained. Given that Irish patients had previously been referred to the UK for transplantations, it made sense for us to send our nurses, doctors, anaesthetists over there for training also. So, in 1990 we established a twinning programme with King’s College Hospital in London and our team members moved over there to train for four, six or sometimes 12 months.”

Prof. Traynor and the team properly launched the programme in 1993, and it went on to become hugely successful – quickly growing to deliver approximately 65 liver transplants per year. “It was a real game-changer," says Oscar “particularly for those patients with end stage liver disease who had often struggled to get a referral abroad. It was an exciting time also as the challenges facing some of the early liver transplants from the 1960s through to the 1980s, specifically rejection of the liver, had been resolved through powerful new immunosuppressant drugs. It’s an interesting surgical specialty because over the years the technique hasn’t changed drastically, but what has changed is perioperative care, intensive care, and the management of rejection and sepsis. The antiviral drugs developed to treat hepatitis C have also had a huge impact.”

Apart from his surgical practice, Prof. Traynor’s pathway into surgical training and education was somewhat serendipitous. “In 1998, my good friend Mr Joe Duignan was elected to RCSI Council. At the time he held the role of Dean of Postgraduate Surgical Training at RCSI, which he had to vacate in order to become a Council member. He kind of casually mentioned the role of Dean to me and suggested I consider applying. It certainly wasn’t part of any grand master plan,” he jokes.

Initially intended as a three-year contract, Prof. Traynor remained in the position – under various title changes up until 2021. “I think they forgot to set the timer!” he laughs. During this period, Prof. Traynor led out on several innovations and achievements, not least the early challenge of consolidating the various independent surgical training schemes into one programme. “Back in 1998, there were six core surgical training programmes in the country. They were independent from each other with no connection, no communication, no common curriculum,” he recalls. “One of my first objectives in the role of Dean was to try and bring these programmes together in an effort to ensure a fairer and more standardised selection process.”

Despite some initial objections, people began to see the merits of one programme. “In particular, I think the trainees understood the benefit of having a national training programme. A major disadvantage of having multiple schemes was that trainees were limited in their ability to network and connect. As a trainee in Galway, you had very little chance of getting a consultant role in Dublin and vice versa. I also think trainees appreciated the national selection process which had very clear criteria.”

Once the national programme had been established, Prof. Traynor set his sights on the creation of a structured education programme in the College. “We started this in 2002 by bringing core surgical trainees into the College for simulation training. Nowadays simulation training is the norm and fully integrated into medical and surgical education, but at the time it was considered a bit off the wall to have SHOs spend six days in a lab in RCSI. However, we got great support from the College and so we set up our first little skills lab on the first floor of 121 St. Stephen’s Green – a far cry from what is available in 26 York Street,” he laughs. “We were extremely fortunate to have very talented surgical skills tutors, the late Mr Brian Lane and Professor Peter Gillen. We had simulation models and virtual reality simulators in the lab and trainees from across the country would attend. While there was initial scepticism it quickly became the norm.”

And so, in 2005 just as simulation training was becoming increasingly mainstream, Prof. Traynor decided to come up with another new idea... Human Factors Training. “I think the general consensus was that I had lost the plot slightly,” he smiles “but, we had really great support from Prof. Arthur Tanner, who was the Head of Surgical Affairs at the time and also from Prof. Ciaran O’Boyle, Professor of Psychology. They really understood the importance of developing our surgical trainees’ soft skills – communication, teamwork, leadership etc.”

Working along with Dr Dara O’Keeffe and subsequently with Dr Eva Doherty, Prof. Traynor helped to lead the roll out of human factors training – a first for any surgical College worldwide. “Once again, as with the consolidation of several training schemes into one national programme, it was the trainees who were the early adopters of the human factors training. They really saw the value and benefit.”

Prof. Traynor also recognises the establishment of the National Doctors Training and Planning (NDTP) group in 2007, as another step in enhancing surgical training. “Up until that point there were no clearly defined structures or frameworks for curriculum development, training and education. The creation of the NDTP was hugely beneficial in that regard,” he reflects.

In 2021, Prof. Traynor’s tenure as Dean ended but he continued as Professor of Postgraduate Surgical Education until August 2023 when he was appointed as Director of International Surgical Training Programmes at RCSI. “It has been hugely enjoyable to work on the international side of things,” shares Oscar. “The trainees who participate in the programme already have had six or seven years of training in their own country and so are already very experienced. Through the programme they get the opportunity to travel here to Ireland to undertake further sub-specialised training, which may not be available in their country. On the flipside the Irish healthcare system benefits from additional experienced manpower at no additional cost.”

In recent weeks, after an incredible and hugely impactful career, Prof. Traynor has stepped down from his role. “I tell people that I kept retiring from all these roles, but like a bad infection, they couldn’t quite get rid of me,” he jokes! Those who attended the recent retirement do in RCSI know that this isn’t the case but, hopefully retirement won’t be the end of his involvement with RCSI as he hopes to continue some teaching and to do some consultancy work if the opportunity arises. Apart from that his time will be spent in the archives, researching his rebel grandfather and who knows, perhaps there might even be time to follow up on the airline pilot license after all!

*First published in Surgical Bulletin on 11 December 2025