Michael Patrick Quinlan was born on 17 March 1943 in Southport, Lancashire and studied medicine at the University of Liverpool, graduating in 1967. In London he was a senior registrar at the Middlesex Hospital, associate lecturer at the Institute of Ophthalmology and resident surgical officer at Moorfields Eye Hospital. After passing the fellowship of the college in 1977, he was appointed a consultant ophthalmologist to the Hereford AHA and Powys Health Authority. He was a member of the British Ophthalmological Society. On 4 April 1999 he died in Hereford, aged 56.