Lucas Murnaghan, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, and an underwater photographer passed away at the age of 45.
His clinical practice at the Hospital for Sick Children where he worked between 2009 and 2019 primarily involved treating young athletes.
Peter Ferguson, chair of the department of Orthopedics at the University of Toronto where Murnaghan was an assistant professor, said in a post on the university’s website said, “He worked diligently with pediatric and adolescent patients—many of whom went on to play collegiate and professional sports—to help them achieve their athletic goals.”
Murnaghan was also an athlete himself participating in marathons and triathlons, as well as an underwater photographer.
His longtime partner and founder and chief executive officer of Surf the Greats, Antonio Lennert, mourned his passing from bile duct cancer on Instagram.
“Today, I lost the love of my life,” Lennert wrote. “Not only the love of my life, I lost my greatest mentor, my business partner, my best friend.”
Murnaghan earned his undergraduate and medical degrees at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and did his orthopedic residency at the University of British Columbia.
After almost a decade as a surgeon, in 2019 he became a full-time co-owner and operator with his partner of Surf the Greats, a company devoted to creating space for surfers to connect.
In a Ted Talk from March 2020, he shares what led him to follow in family’s footsteps by studying medicine and his personal journey of coming out as a gay man.
Murnaghan was also known for his underwater photography which captured his subjects in the midst of a range of emotions—from sensual to thoughtful—against a backdrop of the stillness of water.
Water was always central his peace. During the Ted Talk, he said. “Water has always been my place of refuge. When all the world around me was too much to bear, I could sink beneath the surface, and everything else would slip away.”
“Lucas was beautifully intricate and complex. He was a scientist and an artist, a doctor and patient, an elite athlete who carried the burden of illness, extremely confident and daringly vulnerable. For many in his community he was an anchor point—a calm and comforting presence in an increasingly chaotic world. Without him we feel untethered,” his partner wrote on Instagram.
I recently discovered his photography and it’s amazing.