Keith Eyre was born on 13 May 1926, in Sydney, Australia. In 1933, the family moved to Auckland where he received his secondary school education at Sacred Heart College before enrolling as a medical student at the University of Otago. He graduated with distinction in medicine, being awarded the Marjorie McCallum Memorial Medal and Prize in Medicine, the Colquhoun Memorial Medal in Systematic Medicine, and the Bachelor Medal and Prize in Obstetrics in Gynaecology.
He was a resident medical officer (1950 to 1951) and medical registrar (1952 to 1953) to the Auckland Hospital Board. In 1952, he passed the RACP membership examination and in 1953, he passed the general medicine and therapeutics examinations for the MD (Otago) with distinction.
He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and joined the neurology fellowship programme at the Mayo Clinic from 1954 to 1957. Under the supervision of Dr Reginald Bickford, Keith undertook a microelectrode study of the visual cortex and the lateral geniculate body in rabbits. This research was submitted as a thesis for which he was awarded an MD in 1957. In the same year he received a Nuffield Foundation Travelling Fellowship and spent the next 12 months at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queen Square, London.
In 1958, he was appointed to the part-time visiting staff at Auckland Hospital as an Assistant Neurological Physician and also started private practice as a consultant neurologist. Gavin Glasgow, who had been appointed a year earlier, and Keith Eyre were the founding members of the Neurology Department at Auckland Hospital when it was established in 1959. At first, they also provided a neurological consulting service to the provincial centres in the upper North Island. In 1958, Keith was appointed convenor of a committee to establish a respiratory unit at Auckland Hospital. This unit was the precursor of the Department of Critical Care Medicine. He was in charge of the hospital's electroencephalography services until 1968, and a clinical teacher in neurology in the University of Auckland's School of Medicine. Keith was Chairman of the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at Auckland Hospital from 1975 to 1976. He retired from the staff of Auckland Hospital in 1991. In the same year, however, he was appointed Medical Director of Neuroservices at Auckland Hospital. He performed these duties wisely and competently, but Keith happily relinquished this role after 12 months.
Keith was elected a fellow of the RACP in 1965. He was President of the Neurological Association of New Zealand from 1967 to 1968. In 1969, he was elected to the executive committee of the Auckland Division of the Medical Association of New Zealand (the precursor of the New Zealand Medical Association or NZMA) and then served as its chairman (1971 to 1973), and President (1974). As a member of the national executive committee of the Council of the NZMA from 1973 to 1978, Keith prepared and presented the Association's submissions to Royal Commissions of Inquiry into psychiatric services, hospital services and chiropractic practice. In 1976, he was a member of the Minister of Health's Special Advisory Committee on Computer Reorganisation in Health and Hospital Services.
He was frequently called upon as an expert in medicolegal matters, an area in which his careful and logical analysis was much appreciated. He provided expert opinions on neurological matters in many civil and criminal cases, appearing as an expert witness before the Medical Practitioners' Disciplinary Committee, the former Magistrates' and Supreme Courts, and in the Coroner's, District and High Courts.
Keith was an expert clinical neurologist. He was an instantly recognisable figure in Auckland Hospital. He attended ward rounds immaculately attired in a suit and bow tie. He was reserved by nature but had a quiet sense of humour. His clinical method was one of meticulous and methodical interrogation and examination of his patients. He often would spend an hour or more interviewing and examining each patient. His clinical reports were detailed and lengthy, often many type-written pages long. Although his ward rounds were protracted, and he was often reticent in the communication of his opinion, he was a very astute clinician and he was always well-informed. He was insistent on detailed investigation of his patients and strived to reach a diagnosis when confronted with complicated neurological problems that had baffled other clinicians.
His clinical work left no time for research and, as a result, he published relatively few papers. However, his meticulous investigation of a family with hereditary motor sensory neuropathy with vocal cord palsies (hereditary motor and sensory neuropathy type 2C) eventually led to the discovery of the responsible genetic mutation.
Keith had a wide range of interests outside medicine, which included, but were not confined to; sailing, rugby, economics, geology, jazz and classical music.
Keith was a quiet and private man, who was dedicated to his wife, Colleen, and their four children. He married Colleen Lineen in 1951. They lived in Auckland until the last few years of their lives, when they moved to New Plymouth. Keith died after a long illness on 6 January 2019; he was pre-deceased by Colleen in 2015. He is survived by his four children: Christine (Taranaki), Janet (Rhodes Scholar in 1978, and Professor of Paediatric Neuroscience, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England), David (Tokyo), Julia (Newcastle-upon-Tyne), 10 grandchildren, and 8 great grandchildren.