RCSI Alumni - Tales of the Unexpected

When a traditionally routed career path takes a twist anything can happen. Six alumni share their distinctive stories

DR MATTHEW MACPARTLIN, MEDICINE, CLASS OF 1998 INTENSIVE CARE CONSULTANT UNEXPECTED: FORMULA ONE MEDICAL OFFICER

FCICM, FACEM, FFSEM, MRCPI, Intensivist at Wollongong Hospital, NSW, Australia, ISHEC 3D Printing Collaborative Medical Lead, Co-founder of the Intensive Care Network website, Host of the Rollcage Medic website and podcast, Deputy Chief Medical Officer for the Australian, F1GP and WRC, Secretary and Treasurer for the International Council for Motorsport Science (ICMS), Co-host of the ICMS Café

After graduation, like most of my classmates, I headed to Beaumont for my intern year followed by two years as an SHO, with some “out” rotations in Letterkenny and Cavan. During that time I spent quite a bit of time in the emergency department and decided that was the area in which I wanted to specialise. I was planning to go to Chicago to train and then someone suggested Australia. Almost overnight it suddenly seemed an option worth thinking about – with a very similar health system to Ireland but better weather. I arrived in 2001, with the intention of staying only as long as it took to get my Fellowship sorted out, be appointed as a Consultant and then go home. at plan completely fell apart and I’m still here.

My First job was in Liverpool Hospital, New South Wales and I did all my emergency training there, with a couple of “out” rotations. I completed my Fellowship in 2008 and a second in intensive care in 2010. Then I moved to the job I hold now in Wollongong Hospital, an hour south of Sydney, where I’m an Intensive Care Consultant.

When I was a medical student on elective in Malaysia, I had the opportunity to tag along with the medical team at a motorsport event. I spent the day hanging out in a rubber plantation, avoiding snakes, eating roti and curry, watching fast cars at what I think was probably a stage of the Asia Pacific rally. It was pretty good, and back in Ireland I started to do the same at Mondello Park, a few forest rallies and at the Donegal rally, hanging out with the paramedics and occasionally getting paid 50 quid. At that stage I’d started to watch Formula One – I knew I would never be a driver but to be involved in some capacity became a thing I thought I would like to do. Once I got settled in Australia I got online and tracked down the doctor for the stage of the World Rally Championship held in Perth and asked if I could join in, and I’ve been involved here ever since.

I’ve now spent the best part of 20 years being a Medical Officer for everything from club motorsport events to international events and long distance endurance events. For the last couple of years I’ve been Deputy Chief Medical Officer for both the Formula One in Melbourne and the World Rally event in Coffs Harbour. I usually do between six and twelve events each year, including at my local track Sydney Motorsport Park in Eastern Creek. ere have been fewer events due to COVID-19 but they are coming back now, although with fewer spectators.

“AT THE TOP TIERS OF MOTORSPORT, COMPETITORS NOW HAVE A MUCH BETTER CHANCE OF WALKING AWAY FROM A BIG CRASH WITHOUT MAJOR INJURY THAN ANY TIME PREVIOUSLY.”

Motorsport has changed a lot over the years. When I started, I was going to a lot more incidents, with a wider range of injuries and illness, but there has been a lot of engineering work done on the safety features of the cars, as well as on helmets, re suppression systems, and driver conditioning. At the top tiers of motorsport, competitors now have a much better chance of walking away from a big crash without major injury than any time previously, though the gap between having no injury and not walking away at all is much narrower. There is a wider range of potential for injury at the lower tiers where the cars can be older or the safety equipment less well developed.

More recently, for relaxation outside of work and motorsport, I play the drums in a band with some friends – some of whom are medics. We don’t have a name yet but we have been practising for the last six months and we’re getting to the point of thinking we might take the next step and play in front of a few people. I’m not sure if my kids think this is a good idea, though.

DR EVA HANCILES, MEDICINE, CLASS OF 1988 ANAESTHETIST UNEXPECTED: ENTREPRENEUR FARMER

Fellow of the Faculty of Anaesthetists of RCSI and of the West African College of Surgeons, Head of the Department of Anaesthesia, University of Sierra Leone Teaching Hospitals Complex, Head of ICU at Connaught Hospital, Associate Lecturer, College of Medicine & Allied Health Sciences

After graduating from RCSI, I stayed in Ireland to specialise in Anaesthesia, training mainly in Dublin. In 1994 I went to Toronto to sub-specialise in General Cardiac Anaesthesiology and in 1996 took up a post as Consultant Anaesthetist at Kings College Hospital. While I was in London, I met my husband, Christopher Roberts, and in 2007 we returned home to Sierra Leone, after the war.

I took up a position as Head of Intensive Care at Connaught Hospital. There is a shortage of anaesthetists here and one of my priorities has been to support and develop a pre-existing training programme for nurse-anaesthetists to provide anaesthesia services in rural Sierra Leone, which is particularly vital for women, who are at risk of greater morbidity and sometimes mortality. e programme to train nurse-anaesthetists is on pause at the moment as we are trying to move from a diploma to a degree course. I am busy putting together a new curriculum to start in October 2021, alongside a curriculum to train critical care nurses, as we don’t have a course here and currently we have to send people away to train in Ghana and Nigeria. We hope to take on ten nurse-anaesthetists who have graduated from the present diploma course, and eight to ten critical care nurses. In the first semester there will be some commonality between the two courses, and then we will send them out for further training. With my colleague Dr Eric Vreede from the Netherlands, who I first met at our post graduation ceremony in 1994 at RCSI, we are also preparing three residents in anaesthesia for their Primary exams in April.

Moringa Plant

As well as my work in anaesthesia and medical education, I have, together with my husband Chris, founded a business, Morvigor Sierra Leone, making tea from the leaves of the moringa plant. I first heard of it by chance, as it is used in East Africa as a natural method of water puri cation. e leaves are full of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants and help to prevent malnutrition, which is still endemic here especially in the under fives. We also prepare tea infusions and powders that we are exporting to the US and UK. They are in all the supermarkets, here too and going quite well, children take it as a nutritional supplement. It’s not a big business but it is growing!

I am a very busy person but having good people around me to help is key; once you have good people you try to train your staff and it’s a continuous process in which you play a supervisory role. I go examining for the West Africa College of Surgeons twice each year in Nigeria and Ghana, but I don’t do on-call from the hospital any more, only from home. My husband takes care of a lot of the business side of things. Outside of this I have a full social life, and am involved in my church – you can’t help but be involved when you are back here. It is good to do good.

MS DEIRDRE SEOIGHE, MEDICINE, CLASS OF 2003, PLASTIC AND RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGEON UNEXPECTED: VOLCANO FIRST RESPONDER

MB, BCh, BAO, MCh., FRCS (Plast.) Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon, Waikato Hospital, Hamilton, New Zealand

Deirdre Seoighe was on maternity leave with her three-month old son, Ruadhán in 2019, when New Zealand’s Whakaari/White Island volcano erupted with 47 people on the island. Some died instantly, while others were injured, many suffering severe burns. The final death toll was 22 people.

Afer graduating, I did the BST and then SpR training in plastics. I worked as a locum consultant in Galway, then lived in New York and came to the National Burns Unit at Middlemore in Auckland for Fellowship in 2016. I was appointed to a permanent consultant position in Hamilton, in the Waikato region, in 2017. I moved for love – I’m married to Joe Baker, an Orthopaedic and Spinal Surgeon, who’s from New Zealand.

I love the burns side of plastics. The patients tend to be from poorer socioeconomic groups and many have lifelong injuries. They have to live with the impact and ramifications of those, I find it awe-inspiring the way they get on with life, maybe not quite as before but with a great deal of courage.

“WE ALSO SEE A LOT OF GEOTHERMAL BURNS FROM HOT POOLS

Waikato where I work is the biggest hospital in New Zealand, it’s a busy Level One trauma centre serving a population of nearly one million. The Taupo Volcanic Zone lies within our catchment area, this includes several active volcanoes. We also see a lot of geothermal burns from hot pools. I fly to Gisborne on the east coast of New Zealand every fourth week and do an operating list and a clinic. We provide a service over a huge area, much of it quite remote so many major traumas are choppered in to us.

Ruadhán turned three months on the day of the volcano. I was taking the older kids to their singing lesson and my husband texted to say there had been a volcanic eruption. I rang in to work, and they said they were expecting casualties and one of the consultants in the ED said, “I think you need to come in.” I wasn’t due back from maternity leave for another four or five months and was still breast-feeding. I hadn’t bothered introducing a bottle so I couldn’t leave Ruadhán with anyone else because he’d starve. I left the other kids with the babysitter and I went in. We didn’t know what we were expecting but we were ready and waiting. Someone took the baby from me and said she would let me know when he cried; Waikato is one of these places where they just cope.

Initially we took eight patients, all with serious injuries. We didn’t know their names, ages or nationalities. We operated on all eight that night, finishing at four in the morning. I went home with the baby and came back in for seven the next morning. The hospital management gave Joe leave at short notice to balance my coming in off leave. The thing about burn injuries is they are very labour intensive. You need a big team in theatre, and the temperature needs to be turned up to 36°C so it’s very hard on staff . You want to do the work quickly and efficiently so the patients don’t lose heat or blood. And you have to operate and do changes of dressings every second day for each patient.

I am the only dedicated burns surgeon but we have six other plastic surgeons. The hospital decided I would oversee the clinical management of these patients. It’s very hard as a surgeon not to be hands-on – your instinct and training is to just get in there and do it all yourself. We had three theatres running at a time, and operated every day for two weeks solid. For four or five days we had eight patients, then two Australians were airlifted out, two went up to Middlemore, and two unfortunately died. We were left with two, but even two meant operating every day for two weeks. You can only chip away at burns until they heal. Those last two patients stayed for months. There is really good social medicine in New Zealand, so if you are in an accident all your treatment is covered until you are fully treated. I kept operating until all the burns were off and the new skin was on. We achieved that on Christmas Eve and I went home to Ireland on 26 December. It was a real team effort with so many people from different areas of the hospital helping out.

DR MARY COGHLAN, MEDICINE, CLASS OF 2014

MEDICINE UNEXPECTED: ACTUARY TO DATA ANALYTICS

MRCPI, MB BCh BAO, BA Mathematical Sciences, Oxford University, FSAI / FIA - Fellow of the Society of Actuaries in Ireland / Institute of Actuaries, Director EY Data & Analytics (Head of Health Analytics)

At school, I was conflicted by my love for maths and all things analytical versus a huge interest in science and the humanities (my English teacher told me I was an “unusual case” – I think it was a compliment!). My career started when I joined Irish Life as a trainee actuary when I was 17 and I qualified as an actuary there. I practised as an actuary for about 15 years, with a break to take a degree in mathematics at Oxford University. This work was largely focused on the financial services industry. It was a great experience but for me there was something missing so I re-evaluated and decided to return to complete graduate entry medicine in RCSI. I graduated in 2014. I absolutely loved studying medicine for four years and benefited from the wisdom of some great teachers and mentors. In fact, after I completed my intern year in Beaumont Hospital, I went back as a clinical lecturer in Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown, largely focused on lecturing the second year of the GEM programme.

When I was in RCSI I didn’t really know where I was going to end up and that was part of the excitement and intrigue of the journey. I had a huge interest in medical oncology, and working with Professor Liam Grogan and the medical oncology team in Beaumont Hospital was the highlight of my clinical career. I spent some time hoping to pursue a career in medical oncology. However, I was always aware that I had a complementary skill set and wondered about the possibility of combining my two professional lives. I am passionate about medicine – especially innovation in medicine – and healthcare, but I also love turning my mind to complex problems. The determining factor in the direction of my journey was the fact that I had my son in final med and once I had completed BST, it became apparent to me both from a lifestyle and financial perspective that it would be impossible to pursue my medical oncology dream. It was a very difficult decision – medical training pathways are typically traditionally routed and don’t easily allow for family life, especially at the early stages. I know that progress is being made in this area and I was supported in my clinical journey as much as was possible within the constraints of the system. Both Professors Seamus Sreenan and John McDermott in Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown were particularly supportive.

In 2018, I took on a new role and challenge with EY’s consulting practice. I hoped to combine my two professional lives. It is fair to say that this has been more than realised.

I work in the field of health analytics. This essentially relies on mathematical modelling of any and all relevant variables from the whole system to individual patient level factors. We are all familiar these days, for example, with some of the epidemiological concepts that drive the pandemic. My role for the last year or so has been to largely support an understanding of the practical implications of these factors for the demand and provision of healthcare in this country – from both a COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 perspective. These are complex and largely novel challenges and I hope and believe my ability to combine deep analytical rigour with clinical understanding and insights have helped some of our key decision makers. The work is fascinating. The work is essentially an evidence-based approach to planning which helps inform strategic and operational planning. It is significantly actuarial in nature, which the health domain hasn’t adopted extensively in the past; its value is more appreciated now. There is a huge opportunity for the advancement of health analytics due to the accelerant factor of the pandemic. The opportunity to optimise population and individual health outcomes is first and foremost, but this sort of evidence based approach is more far-reaching. We can save taxpayers’ money by embedding premium quality quantitative analysis of expected outcomes as part of the planning cycle and basing decisions on this.

“THE COMBINATION OF BEING AN ACTUARY AND A DOCTOR HELPS ME TO BE A LEADER IN THIS AREA.”

I greatly enjoy the technical aspects of the work. I am also passionate about its communication to key stakeholders. One of the main challenges of my work is to translate complex concepts into simple messages – to me the work is only as good as this step and I work hard to try to ensure that the messaging does justice to the insights generated. The work may be complex, but the messages delivered are best if they can be distilled simply. The work is specialised and the combination of being an actuary and a doctor helps me to be a leader in this area. None of us ever wanted this to happen, but a pandemic of this nature was a mathematical certainty given how we exist on this planet. It will happen again and it is likely that it won’t be another hundred years. Hopefully we will have learnt valuable lessons this time round – both in terms of future prevention and management.

I miss patient contact and in some ways this has been accentuated by the pandemic, knowing the stress and strain on my clinical colleagues. Ideally in the distant future, I would like to think I can return to some degree of this. However, I love what I do now – I am absolutely passionate about the opportunity for health that this type of work presents. It certainly gives me purpose in getting out of bed every morning.

PROFESSOR NIAMH NIC DAEID, PHD, CLASS OF 2012

CHEMIST UNEXPECTED: FORENSIC SCIENTIST

PhD in Chemistry from the National University of Ireland, PhD, BSc. FRSE, FRSC, CChem, FICI, FCSFS, FFireInv, Professor of Forensic Science, University of Dundee

I was one of the first chemistry PhD students at RCSI, arriving in the College in 1989 a er an undergraduate degree in applied science (chemistry and mathematics) at DIT Kevin Street.

My doctorate was in the eld of bioinorganic chemistry. I worked under Professor Kevin Nolan and a second supervisor from UCD. The area was interesting to me because it was connected with medicinal applications, something in which I had a side-interest.

Towards the end of my research, I spent a year working for a Trinity spinout company involved in environmental monitoring and in 1994 applied to Strathclyde University in Glasgow for a lecturing post in the forensic science unit. My parents were the first private practice consultant fire investigators in Ireland, so I grew up having an understanding of the importance of forensic science.

My initial contract was for two years, but I am still in Scotland nearly 30 years later, having worked my way up the academic ladder here, attaining my Professorship in 2011, the first female Professor in natural sciences in Strathclyde’s history.

In 2014, I moved to the University of Dundee where I am the University’s Professor of Forensic Science, and within 18 months had, with my colleague Professor Dame Sue Black, landed the biggest grant ever awarded (£10m) to forensic science in academia in the UK. What I do now is lead the Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science, which is unusual in that it is funded to undertake disruptive research, to look at the whole ecosystem of forensic science and see where a profound disruption needs to occur in order to shift the culture, focus or mindset of that ecosystem to a better place. For the first time, we have brought scientists, law enforcement, legal colleagues and the judiciary together to discuss openly the challenges we have all faced in ensuring that evidence presented in the courts is robust and scientific.

In particular there are concerns about the scientific robustness of feature comparison evidence where we are trying to link people to ngermarks, bullets to guns, shoes to shoe prints or tools to tool marks. Most of these comparisons are undertaken subjectively rather than through objective verifiable measurements with known uncertainties, and this has caused concern about the scientific validity of that evidence when presented in court. The Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science endeavours to tackle these issues by creating opportunities for senior members of the judiciary and legal practitioners from both defence and prosecution sides to meet with forensic and other scientists, as well as representatives of law enforcement and the public, to explore what advances in science can do to help address the challenges in relation to evidence being put before the courts and find solutions.

We facilitate conversations between judges and scientists that don’t take place in a courtroom but in a space where we can all speak freely and discuss each other’s needs and challenges, and work out what research needs to be done to raise the level of science underpinning the evidence that may be admitted to the courts. It enables frontline practitioners to work with academic researchers to tease out what exactly is the challenge around a particular evidence type and how to work collectively to address that challenge.

While it is not my core job, I also undertake forensic casework for both prosecution and defence in relation to re investigation and clandestine drug manufacture, my specific areas of expertise, and also give expert testimony in court and at public enquiries.

We have now secured an additional £15m of funding commencing in 2024 to fund JustTech, the world’s first institute for innovation for forensic science, which will take the output of academic researchers and translate it into operational practice. It’s a translation engine but also a space where we can be adventurous, try things and fail safely so as ultimately to develop and implement technologies that are really fit for purpose when they go into the operational context. These days my teaching load is small, as I manage a staff and postgraduate student complement of 42. The thing that is most enjoyable is watching how staff who have come into the Centre, with diverse backgrounds from social science to computing and the natural sciences, have developed together as an interdisciplinary team working on everything from public engagement to the development of research in new psychoactive drugs, the use of virtual reality in forensic casework and understanding transfer and persistence of DNA. With our tech and administrative staff we all work together like one big family. It is a pleasure to see them understanding each other’s areas of expertise and also to witness their willingness to help each other. Doing interdisciplinary research is really hard as it is difficult to get people to see the perspective of others, so it is great to see now there is no fear of getting stuck in and facilitating these open discussions.

PROFESSOR PATRICK WALL, MEDICINE, CLASS OF 1986

VETERINARIAN UNEXPECTED: PUBLIC HEALTH

MB BAO BCh, MSc MVB,MBA MRCVS MFPHM Diplomate in the European College of Veterinary Public Health Professor of Public Health UCD

Prior to RCSI, I qualified as a vet in UCD and worked in the UK and Ireland. My time in Surgeons was one of the best periods in my life – great staff, great classmates from all over the world and great craic. After graduating from RCSI, I interned in Drogheda, which was run by a religious order, the Medical Missionaries of Mary, who operated several hospitals in Africa. In 1988, I volunteered to work in a very rural area in Tanzania for two years where the order ran a busy hospital and mother and baby clinics in 22 villages in the district. The hospital was the last stop for patients and there was no referral so whatever came in had to be dealt with. The HIV epidemic had started and at the time there was no antiretroviral therapy so a diagnosis of HIV/AIDS was an inevitable death sentence.

When I returned from Tanzania I worked in the UK. I got a bit of a shock as after working in Kabanga I thought I could do anything, but all my peers had acquired Memberships and Fellowships and proceeded up the medical career ladder. But I was lucky and got a few breaks.

I started off as an SHO, enrolled in a public health training programme, and worked in public health departments in Kent and Berkshire. I did a Masters as a Research Registrar in the Hammersmith Hospital on the molecular epidemiology of infectious diseases. From there I went to work in the UK Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre on the Public Health Laboratory Services laboratory campus in Colindale, London. Initially I was working in the HIV/AIDS Division and I did my Membership of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine while there.

Next I went to work in the Field Investigation Service where we investigated many very interesting outbreaks from TB to legionella and cryptosporidiosis, and numerous foodborne outbreaks. It was a great learning environment and I had the opportunity to go for training to the CDC in Atlanta. We had a great bunch of epidemiologists and molecular scientists in the Centre in London at this time; Dr Mike Ryan, who is now in the WHO, was there with me.

I got another one of my lucky breaks when the head of the Gastrointestinal Chairperson who was younger than me, took a job in Scotland as his wife, who was Scottish wanted to go home, and I got the job as his locum, which tee’d me up to get the fulltime position a year later.

The BSE epidemic undermined consumer confidence in the entire food supply and triggered global reforms on the oversight of the food chain. I was involved in working groups in the UK engaged in setting up an independent food agency, the Food Standards Agency. In Ireland the BSE epidemic was causing a double problem in that, in addition to undermining consumer confidence, our beef exports were collapsing. Ireland wanted to set up its own food safety agency, but there were difficulties in deciding whether it should fall under the aegis of the Department of Agriculture or Department of Health. Each had different views as to what kind of a CEO was required, but a compromise would be a vet and a doctor. I was headhunted for the job and returned to Ireland after eleven years away.

Setting up and running the Food Safety Authority was a brilliant job and I met and worked with fantastic people from the public service and the food industry, and in the Government. After my five-year term as CEO I got a position as Chairman of the newly formed European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), initially headquartered in Brussels, and then moved to Parma in Italy, where I ate my fair share of Parma ham and Parmesan cheese.

One interesting assignment was being on the food safety committee for the Beijing Olympic Games which involved many trips to China. I am still on the International Scientific Advisory Committee of the Chinese National Centre for Food Safety and Risk Assessment.

After my EFSA adventure, I got a part-time job in UCD covering for the late Dan Collins, the Professor of Veterinary Public Health, who had retired. Subsequently a job came up in the School of Medicine. UCD is full of young people who are positive and optimistic; they have an infectious enthusiasm and I get energy from them. One Health is my area and I teach medical, veterinary, agriculture and food safety students and, with my colleagues in the School of Public Health, I run the Masters in Public Health Programme. Dr Ronan Glynn, the acting CMO, is one of our star alumni. I am involved in the Public Health and One Health programmes in the RCSI/UCD satellite campus in Penang, where I spend a few enjoyable weeks each year.

With my colleague Professor Mary Codd, we have been operating a busy contact tracing centre for the HSE since the start of the pandemic. Initially it was manned by volunteers and now we have progressed to having contract staff. Many of our graduates make up the core team and they are doing great work assisting the public health doctors in the HSE, investigating webs of transmission and tracking variants of concern.

My main hobbies are fishing and horse riding and I spent four years as the Chairperson of Horse Sports Ireland, the governing body of equestrian sport in Ireland. I breed a few horses and I have one I ride daily to keep me sane. ■