The Queen's College Record 2020

JOHN GRAY
John Michael Campbell Gray grew up in north Belfast
during the Troubles and attended his local grammar
school, Belfast Royal Academy. In keeping with a family
tradition, he did his first degree at The Queen’s College,
where he studied biochemistry. He received an open
entrance scholarship awarded for excellence in the
entrance examination and interview.
Obituaries
Although John was from a family of doctors, he was
initially reluctant to follow this well-worn path. On
completing his studies at Oxford, he returned home to Northern Ireland and became
a full time residential worker at the Corrymeela Christian Community, promoting
reconciliation and peace building. John loved connecting with people in every walk of life
and later spent time working in the NI probation service, counselling juvenile offenders.
Ultimately John decided he could best serve others by applying to Queen’s University
Belfast to study medicine. After qualifying he undertook a surgical training path, initially
giving him invaluable experience in managing both blunt and penetrating trauma.
After gaining a training post on the very competitive NI general surgery rotation,
John realised that he enjoyed more varied patient contact, and elected to retrain in
emergency medicine. He found his niche as a caring, patient centred, hands-on, shop
floor consultant in the emergency department.
John first joined the Ulster Hospital’s emergency department in 2002 as a trainee,
where he met his future wife, Sarah, who worked there as a nurse. His career as a
consultant began in the Mater Hospital, Belfast Trust, in 2008, close to where he
grew up. He later returned to the Ulster Hospital, South Eastern Trust, as consultant
in 2016. He was committed to providing the highest standard of care for patients
attending the emergency department and was passionate about education. While
responsible for delivering formal training to medical staff, trainees, and students in
the department, he always ensured that the nursing team and other allied health
professionals were also welcome. John’s quiet, approachable, friendly, unassuming
manner meant that any member of the team knew they could ask for advice, and he
would always remind them ‘that’s why I am here!’
Cruelly unexpected and sudden, John’s death from a cerebral haemorrhage occurred
while he was enjoying time with his wife and their children on the north Antrim coast.
It is a marker of his gentle, loving and generous nature that over a thousand friends,
grateful patients, and members of staff from every discipline imaginable, throughout
Northern Ireland, joined John’s family for a service of thanksgiving at St Andrew’s
Presbyterian Church, east Belfast, on 2 August 2019. Because of the large numbers,
many had to stand outside, where the service was relayed on loudspeakers. The
recurrent eulogies from his colleagues referred to a good humoured and highly skilled
College Record 2020 | The Queen’s College 125