
One of our founding trustees Professor Maurice Savage who worked tirelessly to establish the existing renal unit within the RBHSC has written a book documenting his experiences with the sick children he met during his long and successful career. The book Children Are My Heroes contains some of his recollections with the children he met and befriended and whom he still maintains connections with. As a young doctor training to become a Paediatrician, Maurice Savage met a young child with what turned out to be a progressive kidney disease. He realised there was no known curative treatment. Discovering that kidney dialysis and transplantation was not yet available for small children at that time, the direction of his future career was set. The book tracks his experiences from medical student days, to his time as a junior doctor in Belfast through the worst days of the ‘Troubles” Never forgetting that child, he moved to London to study at the Hospital for Sick Children at Great Ormond Street and then to Manchester. Having gained expertise in Paediatric Nephrology, he returned to his home city of Belfast to establish a renal replacement programme for children. Maurice is Emeritus Professor of Paediatrics at Queen’s University.