Two staff dead in shooting at Boston hospital

BOSTON -- A man and a woman who worked at Massachusetts General Hospital were shot to death in an office Tuesday, and police said they were alone at the time.

Authorities would not say whether it was a murder-suicide, but police spokeswoman Mariellen Burns said investigators don't believe anyone else was involved and were not seeking suspects. She said several shots were fired from a handgun found in the office.

Dr. Brian McGovern, a prominent cardiologist, and a woman who worked at the hospital were pronounced dead when they arrived at the emergency room.

Police said they had not released the woman's name because her family had not been notified. Hospital officials also declined to release details about her or her job.

Neither police nor hospital officials would comment on a possible motive for the shooting. Burns said police were waiting for autopsy results and interviewing people who worked in the office as well as people who knew the two.

The shooting took place about 10 a.m. in a small office in the hospital's Cardiac Arrhythmia Center and Electrophysiology Lab, where McGovern worked, according to Dr. Peter Slavin, president of the hospital.

McGovern, 47, a native of Ireland, was co-director of the hospital's Cardiac Arrhythmia Service and specialized in treating patients with disturbances of the heart rhythm.

He also was an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and chairman of the Atrial Fibrillation Foundation, created by patients and physicians to encourage research into the disease.

Slavin said McGovern was a "very well-respected, well-regarded" physician at the hospital, where he had worked for more than 20 years.

"He was an outgoing and friendly person. He had a nice Irish brogue and a twinkle in his eye," said David Torchiana, chief executive and chairman of the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization.

Slavin said McGovern had two young daughters and was married to a physician who did not work at Massachusetts General.

"Not only is this a very difficult episode, a tragic episode for them ... it's a very difficult episode for the entire MGH community," Slavin said.