RCSI Alumni Magazine 2023

WORLD OF OPPORTUNITY

RCSI

15-17 August 2024

SAVE THE DATE

Registration will open online in early 2024.

Celebrating the classes of 1959, 1964, 1969, 1974, 1979, 1984, 1989, 1994, 1999, 2004, 2009, 2014 & 2019

WORLD OF OPPORTUNITY

n many respects, compiling this issue of the RCSI Alumni Magazine was akin to unfurling a rich tapestry of experiences woven by alumni of this institution. An education at RCSI opens doors and creates opportunities that members of our alumni community eagerly embrace. Your time at RCSI remains a shared bedrock but it is incredible to see how each of you have carved your own unique path in the world since graduation. is year’s cover by artist Silvio Severino attempts to capture this sentiment with an eye-catching collage that combines the vibrancy, dynamism and innovation of the present-day University with a nod to the history of RCSI through excerpts of the founding Charter of 1784.

Features such as On Fertile Ground (page 16) show how RCSI alumni have been instrumental in the development and evolution of IVF services in Ireland. In Your Country Needs You (page 32), RCSI alumni demonstrate their impact on rural communities around the world, and our coverage of the Alumni Awards 2020-2023 (page 4) highlights just how extraordinarily dedicated and committed our alumni are to the needs of the patient community far and wide.

As we re ect on the past and look towards the future, we are reminded of the ties that bind us as members of RCSI's global network. We are treated to a glimpse of the good old times in the accounts of the varied overseas and clinical electives that alumni have experienced over the last ve decades. In reading Hands Up For a Great Experience (page 9), our current students would not recognise just how things have changed from 50 years ago. It’s a di erent world, one far removed from the days when one alumna recalled how, in 1981, she raised the funds for her elective in Ortum, Kenya through numerous college cake sales and a competition to see how many students could squash into her friend’s Mini Metro. Nowadays, it’s a competition of a di erent kind to secure a clinical elective that might be career boosting and character building. It is more formalised and represents higher stakes, and is supported by RCSI programmes that are in turn supported by alumni. It is this circle of connections that helps students nd their feet and forge their future.

In this issue, we also take the opportunity to update you on the latest developments at RCSI. In recent years, we have made signi cant strides in research and innovation, and we continue to expand our academic programmes to better serve the needs of our students and the wider community. We are committed to excellence in education, research, and patient care, and we hope that you will continue to support us in these endeavours. We have broken ground for our new building at 118 St Stephen’s Green and are excited to keep you posted on our plans. With this in mind, we encourage you to stay connected with RCSI and to engage with us in any way that you can – by reading the weekly eNews or attending your reunion. Your continued attachment to RCSI is invaluable to us, whether you keep in touch by attending alumni events, by mentoring current students, or simply sharing your story with others through this magazine.

Finally, we want to express our gratitude to you for being a part of the wider RCSI family. You are the ones who have paved the way for future generations of students. We are honoured to have you as our alumni, and we look forward to staying in touch with you in the years to come. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions or if there is anything that we can do to support you.

AÍNE GIBBONS DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT AND ALUMNI RELATIONS

ON

OUR COVER

Combining archive documents – including a copy of the original RCSI Charter – with photographic and figurative elements, Cork-based Brazilian illustrator Silvio Severino responded to our commission to represent the rich tapestry of opportunity open to alumni with creativity and originality.

Aíne Gibbons

IN THIS ISSUE

46 Healing

Celebrating the 250th anniversary of Abraham Colles 49

RCSI ALUMNI MAGAZINE is published annually by RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences. Issues are available online at rcsi.ie/alumni.

Your comments, ideas, updates and letters are welcome. Contact Caoimhe Ní Néill, Alumni Relations Manager at RCSI, 123 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2; telephone: +353 (0) 1 402 8682; email: caoimhenineill@rcsi.com.

RCSI ALUMNI MAGAZINE IS DISTRIBUTED annually to alumni on our database. To ensure you receive a copy, please PROVIDE YOUR CURRENT CONTACT DETAILS at rcsi.ie/alumni. RCSI ALUMNI MAGAZINE is produced by Gloss Publications Ltd, The Courtyard, 40 Main Street, Blackrock, Co Dublin. Copyright Gloss Publications. RCSI Editorial Board: Aíne Gibbons, Louise Loughran, Jane Butler, Paula Curtin, Ailbhe Mac Eoin and Caoimhe Ní Néill.

Celebrating occasions at RCSI

AWARDS 2020 – 2023

For details, see page 4

OUR HERITAGE

RCSI was founded by Royal Charter in 1784 as the national training and professional body for surgery. In 1978, RCSI became a recognised College of the National University of Ireland and in 2010, RCSI was granted by the State, the power to award its own degrees. In 2019, RCSI was granted University status and became RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences.

32 YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU Away from the bright lights

22 BREAKING THE MOULD Exciting additions to RCSI’s art collection

46 HEALING HANDS A pioneer of Irish surgery

2020-2023

ALUMNI AWARDEES ALUMNI AWARDS

2023 witnessed a welcome return to an in-person celebration of RCSI’s Alumni Awards as well as the introduction of a new category – the Inspiring Educator Award

he Alumni Awards are one of RCSI’s highest honours and the event celebrating the recipients has traditionally been one of the most enjoyable and uplifting evenings in the alumni calendar.

2023 saw a welcome return to an in-person Alumni Awards Ceremony, which was held on Saturday, 1 April in RCSI. irteen of the 18 Alumni Awardees, who had received an Alumni Award virtually in 2020, 2021 and 2022, travelled back to the heart of Dublin to receive their Awards at a ceremony that provided RCSI students, sta and faculty with an opportunity to acknowledge and recognise their outstanding achievements as healthcare professionals.

At the event, Aíne Gibbons, RCSI Director of Development and Alumni Relations said: “It has been a real honour to have our awardees from the last three years representing the six Schools within the University present with us tonight. For RCSI it is hugely important to acknowledge our awardees’ achievements in person and to thank

you. We are in equal measures proud and grateful to you for your steadfast commitment to your chosen professions, your continued connection to RCSI and your role as a source of inspiration and motivation to our students, sta and alumni.”

In a break from tradition, only one Award was bestowed for 2023 – the Inspiring Educator Award, which is a new category within the Alumni Awards programme. At the ceremony, Professor Cathal Kelly, RCSI Vice Chancellor and CEO, revealed that over 40 nominations had been received, before announcing Professor Michael Farrell, RCSI Class of 1974, as the recipient of the 2023 Inspiring Educator Alumni Award, kindly supported by MPS. e award recognises Professor Farrell’s inspirational approach to teaching excellence, commitment to innovative curriculum design and dedication to the educational values and vision of RCSI.

For 2024, seven graduates will be bestowed with an Alumni Award. We invite you to submit your nominations online now – visit https://www.rcsi.com/alumni/ events/alumni-awards for more information.

School of Medicine

PROFESSOR MICHAEL FARRELL CLASS OF 1974 INSPIRING EDUCATOR

AWARD 2023

Professor Farrell graduated from RCSI in 1974 with a degree in medicine before undertaking an internship at the Richmond Hospital, Dublin. Following completion of the MRCPI, he began his training in pathology at St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin and later at the Westminster Hospital in London. After his MRCPath, he began a career in neuropathology at the University of Western Ontario, Canada where he also undertook a fellowship in neuroimmunology. Later, he succeeded Professor Paddy Bofin as Neuropathologist to the Richmond Hospital, moving to the new Beaumont Hospital in 1987.

Professor Farrell was appointed the first Professor of Clinical Neurological Sciences at RCSI in 1996. Later, he became Dean of the Institute of Irish Clinical Neuroscience and was also Chairman of the Neuroscience Cogwheel at Beaumont Hospital. His interests include all aspects of clinical neuroscience but with particular interests in epilepsy, neurodegeneration and mitochondrial disease. He is a member of the American Association of Neuropathologists and the British Neuropathological Society as well as the International Society of Neuropathology.

School of Physiotherapy

MS JENNIFER THORNTON-JONES CLASS OF 2013

POSITIVE GLOBAL IMPACT AWARD 2022

MS AISLING BRENNAN CLASS OF 2002

OUTSTANDING CLINICIAN AWARD 2020

MR STEPHEN O’ROURKE CLASS OF 2014 RISING STAR AWARD 2021

School of Medicine

PROFESSOR MICHAEL FARRELL CLASS OF 1974 INSPIRING EDUCATOR AWARD 2023

DR BEN LA BROT CLASS OF 2006

HUMANITARIAN AND COMMUNITY AWARD 2022

School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences

DR BEN RYAN

CLASS OF 2009

RESEARCH AND INNOVATION

AWARD 2022

MS DEIRDRE HEALY CLASS OF 2006

RISING STAR AWARD 2020

Graduate School of Healthcare Management

DR SORCA O’BRIEN

CLASS OF 2021

RISING STAR

AWARD 2022

DR SUBASHNIE DEVKARAN

CLASS OF 2007

POSITIVE GLOBAL IMPACT

AWARD 2021

School of Postgraduate Studies

PROFESSOR NIAMH NIC DAEID

CLASS OF 1993

AMBASSADOR

AWARD 2022

PROFESSOR SANJAY CHOTIRMALL

CLASS OF 2005, PHD 2012

RESEARCH AND INNOVATION

AWARD 2020

DR EVA BUNK

CLASS OF 2010

RESEARCH AND INNOVATION

AWARD 2021

School of Nursing and Midwifery

MS GWEN REGAN

CLASS OF 2011

HUMANITARIAN AND COMMUNITY AWARD 2022

DR CLARE LEWIS

CLASS OF 2009

OUTSTANDING CLINICIAN

AWARD 2021

PHOTOGRAPHED BY KIP CARROLL AT RCSI, 26 YORK STREET.

HANDS UP FOR A GREAT EXPERIENCE

Alumni who graduated decades ago will recall TOES ( e Overseas Electives Scheme), whereby students brought aid in the form of their help and medical supplies to developing countries. e students fundraised throughout the year –cake sales, ra es, quizzes and other japes – and approached hospitals and drug companies to give them unused supplies and medicines they could take with them to Zambia, Nepal, India, ailand and other locations. Electives undertaken as part of TOES had a humanitarian aspect that was based on gaining insights into life and medical care in underprivileged settings. Students helped in local hospitals and clinics and took with them a generous donation for their host institution in return for accommodation. As Dr Shanthini Raju (Class of 2001), TOES President in 2000, says: “It was about doing your bit.”

While electives with a humanitarian focus are still very popular, in more recent times, the pursuit of other types of overseas electives can be a higher value proposition. Ann Hopkins, Director, RCSI Internal Electives Programme, explains: “ e process of securing an overseas elective is now altogether more formalised and more nuanced.” RCSI o ers a signi cant number of overseas electives that are competitively applied for. Students are ranked academically but there are other factors at play.

“ e present-day Overseas Elective Programme allows the big hospitals and institutes in the US and Canada audition the brightest and the best international students with a view to recruiting them a er graduation. So, getting a highly sought-a er post is e ectively a passport to getting a job in the institution you want, and perhaps in the specialty you are interested in,” says Hopkins. For

talented non-EU students, an overseas elective is an even more vital step on their career path, it is not only a way to expand their clinical knowledge and skills but also to enhance their employability.

Internationally renowned hospitals have excellent clinicians, whose time is valuable, so these institutions believe in charging for it. It is a privilege to be trained by these clinicians in these institutions, and the prestige comes at a price. “For some of these electives, the cost of tuition is considerable (as much as $5,000 over the four weeks) and the overall nancial burden when you factor in travel, accommodation and expenses is very high,” says Hopkins. “We try and alleviate the burden for students as much as possible through grants, which are kindly supported by alumni.” As a response to this nancial model, RCSI now allow students up to two months on an overseas elective as academic credit.

Aside from the approximately 100 students who undertake an elective in North America, more than three times that number organise their own electives or apply for other programmes including those run by the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA). For students who have an interest in global or humanitarian medicine, a stint in Malawi, Ethiopia, Tanzania or Kenya is a popular choice. Whatever the elective and by what means the route, RCSI aims to facilitate all students and to help with paperwork and the provision of all-important letters of recommendation.

“Overseas electives are career-boosting and network-building, students get valuable clinical experience and an operational, not just experiential, avour of what it’s like to operate in a healthcare system that is di erent to the one they are used to,” says Ann Hopkins.

Overseas electives are a rite of passage, say alumni, with opportunities that are variously career-boosting, character-building, humbling and always memorable

Dr Juan Lopez Tiboni with the Floating Doctors team.

DR MARY DAVIN POWER Class of 1982

Retired GP and Clinical Adviser, Ireland OE: Mission Hospital, Ortum, Kenya

“There was an RCSI connection with the Mission Hospital, Ortum in Kenya, so myself and a student from Queen’s University ew to Nairobi. Our instructions were to meet at the orn eld Café in the city, where we would be taken by a volunteer to our destination. e journey took days – there were barely any roads for most of it, our Toyota Land Cruiser traversing rough terrain and river beds. We stopped for the night at a priest’s house where there was a set-up with dormitories for volunteers such as ourselves. ey were lovely to us. ere were only two doctors in the hospital, so they were grateful for any help they could get. e rst day there was a queue a mile long for the outpatient clinic. We would pluck out the sickest – perhaps a mother whose baby was very dehydrated, or someone su ering from malaria, or a knife wound – we would o er uids, very basic medicine. Although clinically inexperienced, we were helpful, taking the drudge tasks o the busy doctors and allowing them small breaks. I suppose you would call it a sort of sophisticated triage. e mostly local nurses were extremely knowledgeable and we learned a lot of medicine from them, from setting up drips, suturing and minor surgery to learning to spot the symptoms of tropical diseases. All this using non-verbal clues – we didn’t speak the language so we learned quickly to communicate in other ways. ese skills fed into your con dence, we learned a million things every day.

A surgeon would y in every couple of weeks to operate, but the doctors would take on the less complex caesarean sections and appendixes with us to assist. ere were o en three patients to a bed, the least sickest perhaps under the bed.

It was an eye-opening eight weeks. When I rst helped at a birth, I couldn’t work out the anatomy: that was my rst introduction to the brutal FGM [female genital mutilation] procedure. ey called it female circumcision, but the term was far too benign. ese women o en had prolonged, extremely painful labours. It made sense of the sight I had witnessed of a band of girls roaming around in bloodstained white robes, singing. We also saw a lot of patients with a wasting disease that we couldn’t diagnose or treat. It was, of course, HIV AIDS.

We lived in tiny pre-fabs and when we had some time o , we’d catch a li on a truck for a small fee and head into town. ere would be standing room only, the road crumbling away in places. We’d go to a ‘restaurant’ in a mud hut and go out the back to choose between two large vats of stew.

I felt I had died and gone to heaven just to get this experience. I came from a select group of people studying medicine – we had no concept of how people lived in our own country, let alone how other cultures managed. And to think we raised all the money to get there through cake sales, and a competition to guess the number of people you could stu into a Mini Metro. It was brilliant.”

DR MATTHIAS BRAB Class of 1983 Ophthalmologist, Germany

OE: Sichili Mission Hospital, Zambia

“In 1982, Peter Cantillon, a fellow classmate, and I went to the Sichili Mission Hospital in Zambia, a small hospital with a surgery, a TB ward, a leprosy compound, as well as a laboratory.

e hospital was run by a Swiss order, and part of the Diocese of Livingstone. e doctors were from the Netherlands and Belgium.

On ursdays we started up the generator to allow us to sterilise and prepare the materials for the surgery taking place that day. e range of tasks varied from tooth extraction (a er having studied the textbook) to enucleation of a patient’s eye a er he had been gored by a bu alo. I witnessed young people dying of TB because treatment had been discontinued. We met a young girl with congenital heart disease who couldn’t be operated on because of the limited treatment possibilities and severe nancial constrictions. Many women more or less popped into hospital to quickly have their baby, leaving shortly a erwards to return to work in the elds. We made eld trips around the villages to carry out the necessary vaccinations.

e most di cult question I was asked was put to me by a boy in a village who asked me to explain the term ‘time is money’. Time there was determined not by a clock but by the height of the sun – it was not necessary to wear a watch. No one was in a rush, but all were fascinated by the busy cities in Europe such as London. e big dream was to take a car trip to the capital city. It was a wonderful time for me and an eye-opener, experiencing a totally di erent world, fantastic nature and medicine based on limited resources, improvisation, a total lack of bureaucracy, and a completely di erent philosophy on life.”

DR EDWARD ‘MARTIN’ HOLT Class of 1983 Retired Surgeon, UK OE: Monze Hospital, Zambia

“ e late Han Rademaker (1957-2016, Class of 1983) and I travelled to Africa in the spring of 1982, landing in the heat and humidity at the end of the rainy season in Lusaka Airport, Zambia. Having collected our rucksacks from the plane we were met by a nun who had a Land Rover to transport us to Monze Mission Hospital which was run by Sister Dr Lucy O’Brien. In all my years as a surgeon I have worked with many surgeons but none as quietly commanding as Sister Dr Lucy in her obs and gynae theatre. We were not even in Final Med but were promoted with the title of Dr. Surgery was memorable in many ways other than the speci c procedures, the majority of which were related to obstetrics and gynaecology. e ‘reusable’ disposable gloves meant that you sometimes had to try on several to get a pair which did not tear. Bleeders in an operation were managed by tying o with cat gut or using ‘Zambian diathermy’ in which haemostats were used to lightly crush the vessel as there was no electrical diathermy. Anaesthesia with Halothane was provided by Dr Sicolletti which he used sparingly, so sparingly in fact that when Sister Dr Lucy nished the procedure, leaving us

“WE DIDN’T SPEAK THE LANGUAGE SO WE LEARNED QUICKLY TO COMMUNICATE IN OTHER WAYS. WE LEARNED A MILLION THINGS EVERY DAY.”

to close, he shut o the gas. e rst time this happened was a big surprise as the patient started moving while we were closing. When asked what was happening, Dr Sicolletti said: ‘What’s happening is you are closing slowly.’

e theatre needles were reloadable but blunt which meant that sometimes a lot of push was needed to get them through the tissues while avoiding selfimpalement; the same was true of needles on the ward, which were kept in a kidney dish of antiseptic.

O en the patients had tried the local medicine which included having small cuts made over the site of pain before they resorted to travelling to Monze – these scars would indicate the possible site and chronicity of their condition before they had presented at the hospital clinic.

Han and I learned so much during our short time, particularly how to manage problems and patients with very limited technology. We enjoyed the whole learning experience mainly because of the skill and teaching of generous, learned and patient teachers who I still fondly remember 40 years later.”

DR JONATHAN ROSS Class of 1991 Consultant Neurologist, Maryland, US

OE: Mindanao, Philippines

“At the time I went on an overseas elective, at the age of 21, I was in 4th Med, and the standard electives were to southern Africa or Mali. But our young professor of tropical medicine had just returned from the Philippines and he was anxious to organise some help for the inhabitants of Mindanao, the second biggest island in the Philippines, a massive, mountainous island with the highest concentration of di erent ethnic minorities. I went with my classmate, paediatrician Edwina Tabone. Our elective was facilitated by Catholic missionaries and it turned out not to be the ‘ ird World’ hospital experience I had been anticipating. Not a hospital experience at all in fact.

We had a strange arrival. Our ight to Manila was cancelled, so the planned encounter with our contact never happened. We arrived three days’ late and there was nobody to meet us. We had been told that if we were ever in doubt to call the Franciscan monks. And so we did. e monastery near Manila was full of Irish monks, and they put us up and fed us and used their ham radio to get in touch with some people in Mindanao.

Laden with medical supplies and antibiotics we had sourced at home, we took a domestic ight. Sister Marie, a super-energetic nun, met us and took us to the northern part of the island, where her convent was located. It transpired that that we, along with a young doctor, were to embark on a number of expeditions to various far- ung villages via truck/hike, to circumcise the local populations of seven-year-old boys.

A er a long and rough ride by truck, we would get out to hike the remaining distance to the village. It was mountainous jungle, sweltering, arduous, there were lots of bugs, the water was undrinkable (we used to procure coconuts just to sip the sappy liquid to quench our thirst).

e boys had been rounded up and were waiting for us, they would lie on a table, the doctor would administer a penile block or local aneasthetic, and remove the foreskin. We would watch a few times, then it would be up to us to carry out the procedure. e boys were stoical, none cried.

We were shown such deference in those villages. inking back, it was shameful how superior I felt. Ever since, I have felt a strong sense of my humble place in society. e people we met in those villages had just as happy lives as we did, just without the trappings – they had strong communities and the support of families. Who’s happier? One thing I learned over the many years I have worked as a neurologist is that even when people are faced with horrible chronic diseases, life is worth living no matter what your circumstances. is elective wasn’t fun. It didn’t follow the usual formula – hospital/ expats/beers/great time. It was tough hiking through inhospitable jungle for miles, it was arduous. But I would urge undergraduates to take a chance, have an adventure, aim for personal growth. Our job is a social job – if you don’t have empathy you will make wrong assumptions and bad decisions.”

DR BISOLA LAGUDA

Class of 1994

Paediatric Dermatologist, London, UK

OE: Bethania Hospital, Sialkot, Northern Pakistan

“In 3rd Med, a er fundraising (by taking blood pressure in the St Stephen’s Green Centre among other things!) I went with classmate Mark Butter eld to a general hospital with a dedicated TB unit in Northern Pakistan, run by nuns. It was a brilliant exposure to general medicine and the local doctors taught us a great deal. For TB cases, who were treated free of charge, we helped with canulation, chest and abdominal cavity drains, and we saw many very sick people from the surrounding villages. e doctors treated everybody with respect, including us, inviting us to their homes and taking us out to dinner. We lived in the hospital so it was a total month-long immersion. To do something completely outside your comfort zone and challenge yourself is very rewarding.”

DR LINDA JOHNSTON

Class of 1997

Consultant Radiologist, Northern Ireland and Dublin

OE: Murgwanza Hospital, Tanzania

“My classmate Loretta Nolan and I ew to Nairobi, in Kenya – from there we had been told to catch a ride on a UNCHR Red Cross plane to Tanzania. It wasn’t that easy! Luckily my sister had given me a credit card so we were able to buy two plane tickets. e rural hospital was small and tight on resources – gloves were recycled and the hospital relied on a generator for power. I remember being instructed to look up a textbook in the middle of the night when a di cult surgery was being performed by the doctors, and how, when the doctors held clinics in villages in the area, the scale for weighing babies was hung from the branch of a tree. Mostly, we were observing but it gave us a great insight into the challenges a hospital in the developing world faces every day. Go somewhere you won’t feel comfortable, is my advice to any medical student. You will appreciate anew the resources we have in the developed world.”

DR NOURAH ALMUBARAK

Class of 1998

Consultant Cardiothoracic Radiologist, Kuwait

OE: El Menshawi General Hospital, Tanta, Egypt

“I went to El Menshawi General Hospital, in the city of Tanta. I brought with me a du el bag full of supplies of sterile gauze, IV-line tubes, dressing kits and so on, that I donated to the hospital. ere was a high number of belharziasis cases due to poor water sanitation in rural areas. I spent three weeks there joining rounds and OPDs, and it was a great experience.”

DR SHANTHINI RAJU

Class of 2001

Paediatrician, Australia

OE: St Francis’ Hospital, Zambia

Dr Shanthini Raju was President of TOES in 2000, coordinating fundraising e orts and persuading hospitals and medical supply companies to donate unused supplies that she and her peers could take with them on their electives to Africa and beyond.

“Myself and Dr Nicole Walsh travelled to St Francis’ Hospital in Zambia for six weeks, laden with equipment and medicines we sourced and funds we raised for the hospital. In the malnutrition clinics, the children weren’t starving but they were protein-starved. We educated the mothers in how they could integrate protein using what was available, for instance, by crushing nuts into a paste. e infant mortality rate was 20% – babies died because they didn’t have oxygen, simple things. During outpatient clinics, we would take bloods as the patients waited in a simple wooden hut; the sample would be looked at under a microscope, the diagnosis given, the anti-malarials provided, and the patient would begin a perhaps four-day journey back home. e ward rounds were humbling – these people were so sick, and there were no fancy tests or treatments. It was very desolate yet there was so much beauty – the people were so generous, inviting us to share their small amount of gruel or porridge. It was a well-rounded experience. I realise now that even back then, I gravitated towards paediatrics.”

DR CHELSEA GARCIA Class of 2015 Founder of LivHealth, Trinidad & Tobago OE: Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, USA

“I was six months’ pregnant when I got the opportunity to spend four weeks at the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio. During that time, I never le the hospital – not just because my accommodation was in the hospital but because this was my shot at US residency and I gave it everything.

I did two rotations under two consultants. It turned out that the second consultant was the former director of the residency programme and he still had a lot of in uence. He said he’d love for me to come back as a resident – I told him that I dreamed of working in a sunnier place, what about Cleveland Clinic, Florida? I know, the con dence!

I really didn’t think I had a chance, there were 5,000 applicants for nine spots. I said to myself to enjoy the interview, to see what the Clinic was like. I had no expectations. I would just be my bubbly self. I got in the elevator and said: ‘Good Morning!’ When I went in to my interview, lo and behold, the man in the elevator was my interviewer. He remembered my ‘elevator pitch’. He seemed ustered, unprepared and had just been noti ed that a patient had had a setback on the ward … He asked me to tell him about myself. e icing on the cake was that while he was the assistant programme director, he was su ciently impressed to introduce me to the programme director. at was all it took – ve seconds to make an impact.

My elective in Cleveland Clinic, Ohio led to my job in Cleveland Clinic, Florida and that led to a lot of my success today and to founding LivHealth. As an international student who was not a US citizen, I needed a strong letter of recommendation from a US institution to allow me get residency. I owe that vital step to my Overseas Elective.”

DR PÁRAIC BEHAN Class of 2017 Haematology Specialist Registrar, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland

OE: Community Hospital, Richmond, Virginia, USA

“I completed four clinical electives while at RCSI, the rst at the end of 3rd Med, at a community hospital which was part of the Johnston-Willis Hospital Group in Richmond, Virginia. It was a four-week elective, two weeks medical rotation (rheumatology and endocrinology) and two surgical (cardiothoracic neuro and general surgery).

In the Johnston-Willis Hospital Group there are no interns, so we had incredible one-on-one time with consultants. When I attended procedures with the general surgeon I was very much scrubbed in – he also allowed me to independently review the patient which was extremely helpful for my examination skills.

I went to the US with classmate Daniel Creegan – we lived with two medical students from University of Glasgow and two from the University of Rwanda, rotating at the same hospital, so we gained valuable insights into di erent

Murgwanza Hospital, Tanzania.

education and hospital systems. We had a lot of fun, the six of us, living in a condo together and taking weekend trips in a van provided by the hospital. We had a liaison o cer – we called her our “hospital mom” – who was very helpful. We also met Dr Charles Bonner, an orthopaedic surgeon who had studied at RCSI, graduating in 1976 and had spent ten years in Dublin with his wife, and he kindly invited us to his house on Virginia Beach.

In the summer of 4th Med, I went to Ethiopia with classmate Aoife Casey, sponsored by COSECSA. is was the most a ecting of my electives. I remember in particular an instance when a woman needed a drain in her stomach. She was extremely distressed. I wasn’t providing medical assistance and couldn’t speak her language, but I held her hand, to support and comfort her. I realised then the value of non-verbal communication. As many patients in Irish hospitals do not have English as their rst language, this is extremely important.

I also did electives in Philadelphia and Australia in 5th and Final Med. e diversity of experience I had on all my electives made me a more rounded medic. To learn about other hospitals but also to live, work and travel in other countries is an incredible experience. RCSI invests a huge amount of time into the electives programme and the hospitals they connect with. Even before you go, the groundwork has been laid. It’s a fantastic opportunity.”

DR SOHEIL AFSHARPOUR Class of 2021

Paediatrics Resident, Rutgers

Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Toronto, Canada

OE: Mount Sinai Hospital, Tehran, Iran

“Ethnically, my background is Persian but I grew up in Canada. Keen to explore my roots and see how medical trainees in a di erent healthcare system operated, I secured an overseas elective at a tertiary hospital linked to Tehran University. I worked in the ED, a major trauma centre, 12-hour days, every day for four weeks. It was intense. I learned a lot from every single case. I had 15-20 cases every day of my own – a lot for a student. Even though through my years at RCSI I had been exposed to many pathologies, as a big trauma centre there were many critical cases – everything from

motor vehicle accidents to knife wounds, shootings. I was very well trained from the moment I got there, and extremely carefully supervised – they appreciated my physical exam skills, a strong suit of RCSI students. e fast-paced environment taught me how to evaluate and manage patients quickly and e ciently.

I observed that the social skills, empathy and communication that is highly valued in Ireland does not have the same signi cance everywhere. Advancing through the years at RCSI, we learn how to build rapport with patients. I found the emphasis was not the same in the Middle East. But my experience there allowed me master so many basic skills that others starting out really struggle with and that was the reason I could hit the ground running in my rst job. It was great.”

DR THARMEGAN THARMARATNAM

RCSI Bahrain, Class of 2021 Family Resident, University of British Columbia, Vancouver OE: Jaffna Teaching Hospital, Northern Province, Sri Lanka

Curious to return to his birthplace and to get experience working in a limited-resource setting, Dr armaratnam found his two-week overseas elective in Sri Lanka illuminating. “It was eye-opening, an introduction to how to adapt to a low-resource clinical environment, where just two cardiologists serve a vast province with high volumes of patients and few diagnostic tools. We had one ultrasound and a single echocardiograph and each would be used on 40-50 patients a day, compared to fewer than ten patients in the hospitals I had been exposed to previously. e teams worked productively, scheduling e ciently and making excellent use of the resources they had. e week I spent in tropical medicine was very interesting as I encountered pathologies I hadn’t seen. One parasitic condition caused by Entamoeba histolytica seemed to be very prevalent and I got to collaborate on a review paper. I think the elective widened my perspective, helped me to be a better researcher and stimulated an interest in rural medicine. I see myself in the future in a rural or semi-rural setting, caring for and having close ties with the local community.”

Páraic Behan with his fellow elective colleagues in Virginia.

“THE DIVERSITY OF EXPERIENCE I HAD ON ALL MY ELECTIVES MADE ME A MORE ROUNDED MEDIC. TO LEARN ABOUT OTHER HOSPITALS BUT ALSO TO LIVE, WORK AND TRAVEL IN OTHER COUNTRIES IS AN INCREDIBLE EXPERIENCE.“

DR ABDULLA JABR RCSI Bahrain, Class of 2022 PGY1 Internal Medicine Resident, Metrowest Medical Centre, Framingham, Massachusetts

OE: Lahey Clinic, Massachusetts, USA

“My month-long elective in diagnostic radiology at Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Massachusetts, was by far my most memorable. I rotated at the diagnostic radiology department and worked closely with both residents and attendings. A large number of RCSI alumni work at Lahey and from them I learned about the hospital before even stepping foot inside the building. Once there, I saw the collegiality between sta members and the quality of patient care they provided. Four friends from my graduating class were working in di erent departments at Lahey at the time – Dr Omar Al Qassab (who now works in the IM department), Dr Muhammed Qasim Bhatti, Dr Ibrahim Al-Saadi and Dr Yusuf Mahdi. We explored the city together during our time o .

I assisted with interventions, including uoroscopic-guided biopsies and injections. Lahey is well-known for abdominal imaging, and I assisted in many barium swallow studies.

anks to the teaching skills of one of the radiology technologists, from whom I learned so much, by the the end of my month at Lahey, I had really cemented my love for radiology. e impact a radiologist has on patient care is huge. A typical hospitalist might have as many as 20 patients to care for in a day. A radiologist can easily read upwards of a hundred studies during that time. Every study a radiologist reads will in uence the next steps in the management of a patient. at level of impact on such a large scale is what drew me to the eld to begin with.

Lahey maintains an amazing work culture, given the scale of the institution. Typically, in large institutions, you lose that sense of collegiality. However, I did not observe that during my time at Lahey. Many of the former residents of the radiology department end up working there long-term, which helps maintain the continuity of the workforce culture.”

DR JUAN LOPEZ TIBONI Class of 2022 PGY2 Internal Medicine, Pennsylvania Hospital OE: Floating Doctors, Bocas Del Toro, Panama

“On the morning of our rst deployment, with all the forti ed rice, reading glasses, soap and food we were preparing to give away, the boat was so full we almost had no room for ourselves. While the vessel skipped across the water, I tried to appreciate what I was about to do: act as a lead medical practitioner for the rst time in my career, in a health system I didn’t know, with a population I had never met, in a country whose customs I didn’t understand. All during the worst global pandemic since the Spanish u. e rst community, La Sabana, was one of the most inaccessible, isolated communities in our rotation, on a plateau high up in the mountains. Dr La Brot [founder, Floating Doctors] told me that when his team rst got there ten

years ago, it was the rst time many of the elderly people had seen a doctor. For some, it was their rst time seeing a white man in a generation.

At the entry point to La Sabana, as we unloaded our gear and waited for the wheelbarrows, I felt an odd itch on my le leg. I looked down to nd ants, the hot and hungry jungle variety, crawling all over my le boot. We spent a solid 90 minutes shuttling our gear over three bridges into the heart of the village. My back was sore; the heat made the metal handles searingly hot to touch. I was caked in sweat and exhausted before we had even started. I was ustered, completely out of my depth, and doing my best to show some mettle. ese clinics usually had up to ve or six doctors, and a dozen other sta –now we were just one medical student and two managers. e sheer number of people and my general inexperience were enough to make me tremble. e very rst patient I saw, a diabetic with high blood pressure who needed a renewed prescription and regular follow-up, got nothing from me. Our blood pressure cu was broken and all three of our glucometers were displaying di erent error messages. I made the best of it I could with a clinical exam and brief chat. e real purpose of our visit – to see if any of our chronic patients needed readjustment of their drugs – was basically null as a result. I put my head down and got on with it, although I didn’t recognise how truly overwhelmed I was. I felt sorry for the patients, and for the team.

Neither the patients nor my teammates felt sorry at all though. ey didn’t voice any concerns, didn’t ask me how I was doing, or if I needed help. Carrying on as usual, they saw me at work and what they saw was a doctor. ey believed in me and that made me believe in myself. at was enough to get me through.

Over the next ten weeks, I would go on to counsel pregnant teenagers with pelvic in ammatory disease – completely untreated for months due to the absence of a healthcare presence in their village – treat malnourished children with oral candida who barely had access to emollient creams for their many bizarre rashes, run emergency trauma cases in the jungle, and counsel dozens of diabetics with no access to metformin because of a national shortage of the drug. I grew immensely as both a clinician and as a person.”

The Floating Doctors vessel.

“I WAS FLUSTERED, COMPLETELY OUT OF MY DEPTH, AND DOING MY BEST TO SHOW SOME METTLE.”

NANDINI NANDEESHA

Class of 2023

Senior Cycle 2, Medicine

OE: Floating Doctors, Bocas del Toro, Panama

“ is clinical elective experience was a oncein-a-lifetime unique learning opportunity and my most adventurous undertaking ever. New experiences pushed me to my limits, forcing me to think critically in situations where routine diagnostic tools such as ultrasounds, blood work or X-ray and imaging were not available to make a diagnosis.

I did the tasks a physician would normally engage in during a patient consultation: taking a thorough history, doing a physical exam and diagnosis, devising a management plan. One of the greatest challenges was conducting consultations with the aid of a Spanish translator. The importance of communicating clearly and using the teach-back method really helped.

We held clinics outdoors in the heat without proper rooms or curtains between patients. We ate and slept like members of the local communities; we bathed in rivers, slept in hammocks, used puri ed rainwater for drinking and had no air conditioning in sweltering heat. Being able to fully immerse myself in this experience helped me to understand the patient perspective and apply some of the social determinants of health when working with patients.

I aspire to be a paediatrician and this elective allowed me to work with children of varying age groups. is paediatric population presents as vulnerable, one we could target to prevent pathology which may come on in later years of life, diabetes, for example. Many children in Panama drink sugary drinks such as cola, which is cheap. Educating parents about the impact of sugary drinks, and the importance of brushing teeth or good dental hygiene, was important. I learned about Z scores and how to identify signs of malnutrition. I also taught patients how to consume the nutrition supplements we dispensed. In some cases, families with malnourished children have adult members with similar de ciencies, and nutrition supplements prescribed for the child are o en shared within the family. It was vital to stress to parents the importance of ensuring that children received the necessary supplements.”

SAAD MALLAH, FARIS ALMADI, HEND ANWAR, ZAINAB ALDERAZI Senior Cycle 2, Medicine and 4th Year Nursing OE: RCSI Bahrain International Community Engagement Programme, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Saad Mallah, Faris AlMadi, Hend Anwar and Zainab Alderazi embarked on a journey to Vietnam as part of the International Community Engagement programme. e students were accompanied by the Operation Child Life Team (with their diverse medical and nursing expertise) and Professor Martin Corbally, Head of Department and Professor of Surgery, RCSI Bahrain. ey took part in complex paediatric surgeries and were exposed to di erent cases of non-communicable diseases prevalent in Vietnam. e students visited the two leading hospitals in the capital, Ho Chi Minh City. Professor Corbally praised the students’ enthusiasm, motivation, cultural engagement and medical knowledge. ey were, he said, excellent ambassadors for RCSI. ■

Nandini Nandeesha in Panama.

ON FERTILE GROUND

RCSI alumni have been at the forefront of the development of fertility services both in Ireland and abroad since these rst became available over 40 years ago. With IVF in Ireland to be publicly funded from this year, we speak to alumni who are experts in this eld

n a landmark development for healthcare in Ireland, last year it was announced that Budget 2023 would allocate €10 million towards publicly funded in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment, to commence in September of this year. However, there remains a signi cant lack of clarity on how the plan will be implemented, a real cause for concern for those hoping to access the service.

In recent years, six national fertility hubs have been established in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick, designed to streamline referral pathways and investigative processes for public patients. Yet while these hubs provide some surgical and medical treatments, IVF and embryo creation are not part of their remit. It is the ambition of the Irish government to establish public IVF clinics, but it seems that those seeking to access IVF publicly will be accommodated, at least in the short term, by existing private clinics.

According to the Health Service Executive (HSE), the ‘national eligibility framework’ for who will be able to access these services has yet to be nalised, and as of earlier this year remains under development at the Department of Health. A further, crucial step in the rollout of services requires the realisation and enactment of the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022, which is presently at Committee Stage in the Dáil, and the establishment of the proposed new Assisted Human Reproduction Regulatory Authority. So close, and yet so far.

RCSI alumni have been at the forefront of the development of fertility services both in Ireland and abroad since these rst became available over 40 years ago. e hope of all those involved in the subspecialty is that the investment of public funding will allow for the implementation of equitable, timely and transparent treatment for all who wish to avail of it.

Embryo selection for IVF

Dr Tony Walsh Medicine Class of 1980 Barrister-at-Law, Founder of SIMS IVF, Scientific Adviser, First IVF, Clane, Co Kildare

I rst became interested in fertility treatment in the early 1980s when I wrote a computer programme for the fertility clinic at St James’s Hospital. In 1983, while working with Professor Robbie Harrison, I presented a scienti c paper to the International Federation of Fertility Societies (IFFS) meeting in Dublin. e paper evaluated fertility investigations by weighted indices, tests and procedures and modelled this data mathematically to try to predict the best sequence of testing to achieve a pregnancy. is approach was taken up in part by the WHO as part of their recommendations for fertility treatment and investigation. At that time, women could be put through laparoscopic surgery before their male partner had even had a semen analysis carried out, so part of our work was to show that fertility investigations needed to be addressed logically and sequentially, and be evidence-based.

I spent time at Bourn Hall in Cambridge with Professor Patrick Steptoe and Professor Bob Edwards and did further work with Professor Sam Abdalla of the Lister Hospital in London. Sam taught me the GIFT (Gamete IntraFallopian Transfer) procedure, which was uncontroversial in Ireland, as it did not involve creating embryos. At the time, Sam had begun transvaginal egg retrieval, which was less surgically invasive, and he shi ed to IVF.

I was given the opportunity to open an IVF unit in Clane in 1988 and I le the public system to do this. I was halfway through an MD thesis and membership examinations, and it felt a little isolating.

IVF represented real progress for patients but there was a slow build-up in the number of patients as there was still a lot of stigma and mistrust. At St James’s Hospital, I had found it deeply upsetting that the fertility clinic was held a er hours, and couples would slink in and out. It’s almost incomprehensible to people today how di cult a time it was for reproductive medicine in Ireland.

In 1990 I continued my fellowship attachments at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, working with Dr Edwin Peterson. On my return, I worked in Wexford and then set up a campus company providing IVF procedures at Dublin City University (DCU). In the meantime, Professor Harrison had opened up an IVF unit at the Rotunda; it grew quickly and became the dominant provider of IVF in the State. is unit was eventually bought by us at Sims Clinic in 2014 and I became its Medical Director.

Developing from the campus company at DCU, I founded what became the Sims IVF Clinic with a business partner, Gerry Murphy. About a year later, Dr David Walsh (no relation), who had returned from Vanderbilt in the US, joined me and we had a wonderful medical partnership for 25 years.

Sims grew very quickly and in 2011 we moved to the present Sims IVF building in Clonskeagh where we developed a dedicated small fertility hospital with operating suites, laboratories, and ten single-bed day wards. When I saw how far we had brought reproductive medicine in Ireland it was one of the proudest moments of my life. Sims was bought by an Australian company, Virtus Health Care Ltd, in 2014.

In terms of the science, the big milestones were ovarian stimulation with gonadotrophic hormones, GIFT, IVF, ICSI (Intracytoplasm Sperm Injection; the insertion of sperm into the egg, 1992) and then the grow-out of embryos to the blastocyst stage of development, which we pioneered in Ireland. at was a big step and improved pregnancy rates.

e next phase was looking at the embryo to identify it as being ‘normal’.

Later, more invasive procedures involving pre-genetic screening and pregenetic diagnosis were developed.

Helping people to get pregnant is one thing, but selecting out what is considered an abnormal embryo is another. At that stage I distanced myself from where I felt the science was heading, stopped being clinically active and concentrated on research.

I’m disappointed for patients that the price of the IVF procedure has not reduced despite the big increase in numbers, as it has in other areas.

I have done a lot of work in the area of quality management and I believe regulation and standards are good for everyone. I hope that when public funding is introduced that patients will have choice, and that all the reputable units operating in Ireland will have structured participation.

I also hope the allocation of patient funding will be su cient to allow the absolute best treatments to be available, providing the best chance to achieve a pregnancy, and that the selection criteria are more inclusive than they have been in some NHS regions in the UK, while accepting that a realistic chance of success has to be a factor. e payment of donors and for surrogacy is a sensitive issue which poses di cult ethical questions. IVF is a challenging topic and ethically complicated. e government needs to get everything right from the start, ensure that the patients are the priority, and make sure parish pump politics don’t get involved.”

Dr Tony Walsh

“SIMS GREW VERY QUICKLY. WHEN I SAW HOW FAR WE HAD BROUGHT REPRODUCTIVE MEDICINE IN IRELAND IT WAS ONE OF THE PROUDEST MOMENTS OF MY LIFE.”

Medicine Class of 2009 Reproductive Endocrinologist, Director of Clinical Research, Co-Director of Oncofertility, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Boston IVF, Clinical Instructor, Harvard Medical School

I completed my intern year at Beaumont Hospital and my SHO years at the Coombe Women & Infants University Hospital. I was a junior registrar at the Rotunda Hospital when Professor Edgar Mocanu was Medical Director of the Human Assisted Reproduction Ireland (HARI) unit. I got a avour of the subspecialty then and decided I wanted to pursue a career in reproductive medicine and surgery. Both Professor Mocanu and my mentor, Professor Fergal Malone, advised me to go abroad given the lack of a formal training programme in Ireland.

e US has the most organised and internationally recognised fellowships in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility (REI). Because it is such a competitive eld, you have to do residency in the US to get into a fellowship programme, so I went back to the beginning and in 2013 was fortunate to match into a four-year residency training programme at Tu s Medical Centre in Boston, and then into a three-year REI fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Boston IVF. I completed this in 2020.

e quality of research innovation and training were the primary drivers in terms of me moving to the US. Boston IVF is the third-largest infertility group in the US. It is a private practice a liated with Harvard Medical School and functions as the REI division of BIDMC. Most of the clinical work is done at a separate facility in Waltham, ten miles west of Boston.

As well as being a clinician, I hold roles as the Director of Clinical Research and Co-Director of Oncofertility. Boston IVF is unique as it has the clinical volume to run studies and access to the biotech innovation of Harvard and MIT. at was what drew me to this programme in the rst place, because we don’t have to deal with the bureaucracy of some academic institutions. We can decide which studies we want to run, and are approached by di erent

startups and pharma groups to run trials and studies. Boston is a world leader for medicine and biotechnology.

In the US, a number of states have mandated insurance benefits for infertility; Massachusetts’ are the most generous. Insurance companies provide either dollar amounts or specify the number of IVF cycles that will be covered. Essentially, our patients have to have private health insurance, but BIDMC also has a fellows’ clinic which provides care to those without insurance up to a certain point, much like the fertility hubs in Ireland. ey can provide ovulation induction and consultations with the fellows supervised by one of the consultants free of charge, and there are discounts on intrauterine insemination, but they don’t have access to IVF unless they self-pay or meet criteria and agree to participate in a clinical IVF study. Most of these studies involve drugs already in use in Europe, so they are not experimental. It’s a good way of getting access to IVF for uninsured patients.

Fertility medicine is much more regulated in the US than in Ireland. e training programmes here are rigorous and accredited by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. In Ireland, there are people practising reproductive medicine who aren’t subspecialty trained – they are general obstetricians/gynaecologists. Friends and colleagues working in reproductive medicine in Ireland say it’s di cult to recruit talent because it’s relatively poorly reimbursed compared to private obstetrics.

In the US, the level of quality control and detailed outcomes reporting is very good. It’s not mandatory, but it’s highly encouraged. Our clinics report

Dr Denis Vaughan

“IN THE US, THE LIVE BIRTH RATE PER CYCLE IS ABOUT 10 TO 15 PER CENT HIGHER THAN IN IRELAND.”

Dr Denis Vaughan

Frozen human embryos being removed from liquid nitrogen storage

to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Society of Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) which publish those success rates each year. is protects patients from being sold add-on treatments, which are used a lot more in Ireland than in the US, and ultimately leads to better patient care. Nobody has any idea which is the best clinic in Ireland, because the results are not published anywhere.

In the US, the live birth rate per cycle is about 10 to 15 per cent higher than in Ireland. Europe and the UK tend to lag behind the US, Canada and Australia. at’s explained by IVF becoming mainstream later in Europe than it did here, di erences in lab quality and a lack of subspecialty-trained physicians. at’s not to say there aren’t great clinics in Ireland or Europe, there certainly are, but there is more variability from clinic to clinic. I see many second and third opinions, including 15-20 patients a year from Ireland, who have gone through multiple failed treatments. I o en notice the use of add-on treatments, for which data is lacking.

I think formalised specialist training and tighter regulation would make a big di erence in terms of the reproductive care provided in Ireland, and increase access to essential services such as the use of donor sperm, donor eggs, surrogacy and gestational carriers.

While most of the technologies in run-of-the-mill IVF are available in Ireland, others are still in the experimental phase. For instance, preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) of embryos, such as screening for Down syndrome or other chromosomal abnormalities, is done routinely in most US clinics, but much less frequently in Ireland. Although it isn’t perfect, we know that the use of PGT increases the live birth rate per embryo transfer cycle.

At Harvard, we are working on using AI and predictive modelling to evaluate the optimisation of protocol or dosing of medication in IVF. Image recognition so ware – watching an embryo develop in the lab and predictive modelling based on morpho-kinetics to determine which embryo is most likely to result in a live birth – is something else we are working on. I think these technologies will become part of routine practice very soon. at’s why I’m here, at Harvard, because we’re at the cutting edge. We see it rst, before it gets into clinical practice, and we work with companies to optimise it.

When the public funding is released, I hope patients in Ireland will be able to choose where they want to get treated and there will be greater transparency at clinic level in terms of what treatment is provided, the evidence behind it, and the clinics’ relative success rates.

e other thing I think needs to improve in Ireland is access to oncofertility. Many patients who have been newly diagnosed with cancer will have to get chemotherapy, which we know is toxic to the ovaries. ose patients are at risk of premature menopause, so they should have rapid access to fertility preservation care before receiving chemotherapy. At Boston IVF, oncofertility patients are seen within 72 hours of their diagnosis, and we initiate treatment within one week. We perform either egg freezing or embryo creation, or – if a patient is very sick – we remove part of the ovary and freeze the ovarian tissue for later use so it can be transplanted back in once their cancer is in remission. It’s relatively new, there have been only 250-300 live births globally; it’s not available in Ireland. I know from friends and family in Ireland that fertility preservation is o en not even mentioned to cancer patients, and later they nd out they’ve lost the opportunity to have a biologically related child. ere’s more awareness in the US regarding infertility but, thankfully, awareness is increasing in Ireland and stigma is diminishing.”

Dr Sorca O’Brien GSM Class of 2021 Post-CCST ASPIRE Fellow in Infertility at NMH and Merrion Fertility Clinic

e post-CCST fellowships were brought in in areas where there are gaps in training, and my speci c fellowship and MD are involved in looking at the integration of fertility services into the Irish public hospital system.

Infertility is a pathology. It is classi ed as a medical disease and as such fertility treatment and preservation should be funded as a medical disease and covered through the public hospital system.

My personal career goal is to contribute to a well-funded, formally established, freely available, equitable public fertility service, with every treatment option available to all individuals and couples. We are a long way o that.

It has taken 22 years, since Micheál Martin as Minister for Health commissioned experts to determine a position on IVF as a public service, to get to the current situation where the legislation is now waiting to be debated in the Dáil. From a clinical perspective, it should never have taken this long because there are people who have aged out of any potential to bene t, people who had no option other than to pay or to borrow, or who had to forego things such as buying a house or having a wedding or holidays because they were funnelling all their money into IVF treatment.

IVF generally costs in the region of €6,000 per cycle. A standard, stereotypical couple might be a heterosexual couple who have been trying to conceive for one to two years, and haven’t been successful. ey can

“MY PERSONAL CAREER GOAL IS TO CONTRIBUTE TO A WELL-FUNDED, FORMALLY ESTABLISHED, FREELY AVAILABLE, EQUITABLE PUBLIC FERTILITY SERVICE.

Dr Sorca O’Brien

self-refer, or they can be referred by a GP, or, if they’ve come to the public clinic, we might advise that they need to have IVF because of their clinical characteristics. ey go through a standard set of investigations.

With some couples, it’s clear straight away that they’re going to need a lot of interventional support to try to conceive a baby. In some couples, the female partner might have premature ovarian insu ciency, or very early menopause, or the male partner might have very little or no sperm. at’s a di erent conversation, and we might be talking about third-party treatments with donor eggs or donor sperm.

We also have same-sex female couples coming to us who require donor sperm treatment, single women coming to us for egg freezing or for donor sperm solo parenting, and our demographic is changing quite signi cantly. We do also look a er small numbers of surrogacy cases, where the female partner shouldn’t or can’t carry a pregnancy for some reason.

e government announcement was unexpected but welcome. And everyone who works in the area is wondering how publicly funded IVF will be delivered. I believe the government wants to establish national fertility centres and create a new infrastructure in public buildings sta ed by publicly employed sta and to take it out of the private clinic sphere. at will be a challenge because the existing private clinics already nd sta ng a challenge and the lab techniques and embryology are very subspecialised. We don’t have a dedicated embryology course at university level in Ireland. I think it’s more important for people to get the treatment when they need it than when it’s available in a dedicated public building.”

Ms

Katie Mulrooney

Postgraduate Pharmacy Class of 2019 Support Pharmacist at O’Sheas Pharmacy, Kilkenny

As a pharmacist, there is a range of different services, products and advice I can o er to patients at every stage of their fertility journey.

This usually starts with simple supplementation prior to conception. Currently the only two recommended by the HSE are folic acid and vitamin D, which should be taken by all women from their early 20s through their childbearing years. When it comes to supplements to aid conception, it’s a question of identifying the right products at the start of the pregnancy journey.

In terms of devices, we can advise on cycle trackers, ovulation tests and pregnancy tests.

We also provide advice as to whether particular medications are suitable or unsuitable for use during pregnancy. One of the great things about pharmacists is that they are very accessible. Women don’t need to make an appointment to discuss things with a quali ed healthcare professional and we can advise on alternatives to traditional medicines for minor ailments.

Women trying to conceive may be undergoing fertility treatments, some of which involve medicines. Every pharmacist is trained to deal with the dispensing of fertility-related products and prescriptions. Usually prescriptions come to us via email and we can discuss with the patient what’s needed, taking into account their background and level of knowledge. If it is their rst time, we help minimise their stress and anxiety. In advance of the start date of the cycle, we go through the various tablets, pessaries, liquids and injections involved. It’s important for the pharmacist to inform the patient about the correct timing and storage of the various products and make sure the patient knows how to take them to get the best out of the cycle and make it a positive experience. It’s a lovely journey to be on with the patient when successful.

Most fertility drugs are now covered on the Drugs Payment Scheme (DPS), which makes fertility treatment much more a ordable. As pharmacists, part of our job is to gure out the most cost-e ective way of managing the cycle for the patient.

Conceiving is one thing, but getting through the pregnancy is another. ere are lots of pregnancy risks such as pre-eclampsia that present opportunities for the pharmacist to be involved. ankfully, Cariban is now covered on the DPS for expectant mothers experiencing hyperemesis. Doors are opening all the time to facilitate the pregnancy journey.”

“MOST FERTILITY DRUGS ARE NOW COVERED ON THE DPS, WHICH MAKES FERTILITY TREATMENT MUCH MORE AFFORDABLE.”

Ms Katie Mulrooney

In vitro fertilisation

Professor Cathy Allen Medicine Class of 1995 Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist, Specialist in Reproductive Medicine & Surgery, National Maternity Hospital, St Michael’s Hospital, and Merrion Fertility Clinic

Infertility is still not universally recognised as a disease in Ireland, and recognition is what gives rise to change.

During my undergraduate degree at RCSI, I undertook a summer project with Professor Robbie Harrison, the pioneer of assisted conception and IVF in Ireland. He was a very colourful character and the area caught my imagination, even though my research involved being in an abattoir to collect the ovaries of freshly slaughtered heifers – not very glamorous. But it exposed me to the fascinating eld of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) and to clinicians, researchers and embryologists in the international arena.

My obstetrics and gynaecology training in Ireland was via the old apprenticeship model followed by the new structured training (SpR) schemes, and I returned to work under Professor Harrison at the HARI unit of the Rotunda Hospital. A er completing specialist training, I had further training at Oxford Fertility Unit, John Radcli e Hospital, UK, a centre of excellence for assisted conception and laparoscopic reproductive surgery.

I took up a consultant post at the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) in 2009. Half of my time is in obstetrics and gynaecology in the public system, the rest is in fertility services at Merrion Fertility Clinic, the associated notfor-pro t assisted conception unit.

e decline of religious in uence on women’s healthcare has allowed growth in fertility and other areas of reproductive health. Case complexity is increasing. Some of our current fertility patients, including those with cystic brosis, congenital heart defects or childhood cancers, would not have been expected to survive when I was a junior doctor, let alone start their own families. is improvement is wonderful. e need for more subspecialists in reproductive medicine becomes ever more apparent, so encouraging trainees to specialise in the area is a high priority.

Recurring miscarriage (RM) is one of the services for which I have responsibility in the NMH. ere is o en overlap between causes of RM and those of subfertility, so we combine the expertise available in the public hospital and the assisted conception unit. RM patients are not necessarily infertile, but they may need fertility treatment. Patients appreciate when their history of miscarriage/fertility challenges can be managed by the same team before a successful pregnancy is achieved, which may itself require extra surveillance. We have a special ‘TLC’ clinic dedicated to the early pregnancy care of women who’ve su ered RM, as their physical and psychological needs may be complex.

e socio-demographic trend towards delaying childbearing results in

challenges for some; advanced female age is a risk factor for infertility or RM. e incidence of chromosomal aneuploidy in eggs and embryos increases with age and these conceptions are prone to natural selection mechanisms. Advances in genomics have had a huge in uence on foetal medicine and perinatal care in general, but also on assisted conception. Preimplantation Genetic Testing for Aneuploidy (PGTA) o ers the possibility of screening embryos (created in vitro) for chromosomal normality before they are transferred to the uterus. For some individuals this can be helpful, but it’s expensive. Preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) can also be used to screen embryos for single gene disorders, such as cystic brosis, or in cases where one parent carries a chromosomal balanced translocation.

Currently, only those who can a ord IVF can access it. e promised government funding could vastly improve the quality of care being o ered to fertility patients in this country. Whenever a necessary service is not provided publicly, the private sector lls the void. In Ireland we have seen major investments by private companies into the assisted conception ‘market’. Many are excellent institutions providing high-quality services, but there may be pressure to consider pro t margins in the clinical care of patients, rather than evidence-based medicine. Public sector resourcing is likely to have more transparent structures for governance, oversight, and accountability. e subfertility road is extremely stressful, and contrasting messages between healthcare providers can add to patients’ stress. Public funding would enhance the chance of proper standards and therapies being appraised without a commercial bias. It would also make life a lot easier for doctors, who could recommend the best therapy for individuals based on medical rather than nancial considerations.” ■

Professor Cathy Allen

“

WHENEVER A NECESSARY SERVICE IS NOT PROVIDED PUBLICLY, THE PRIVATE SECTOR FILLS THE VOID.”

IVF treatment in the laboratory

John Rainey

BREAKING THE MOULD

P

ioneers in nursing and midwifery have become the rst two women to be represented in the RC SI Portrait Sculpture Collection . Busts of Elizabeth O’Farrell and Florence Nightingale, commissioned to mark the 40th anniversary of the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery’s Research and Education Conference, have just been installed and unveiled in the RCSI Atrium.

Both subjects had multiple layers of interests and activity. O’Farrell was a nurse and midwife, trained in the National Maternity Hospital, but also a member of Cumann na mBan, the Gaelic League, and the Irish Women’s Franchise League. Nightingale, best known for her stint nursing during the Crimean war, and as founder of the nurses’ training school at St omas’s Hospital, was also a statistician, the rst woman member of the Royal Statistical Society, and an early advocate of the right to healthcare. e three core values of Irish nursing and midwifery are compassion, care, and commitment, and early on John Rainey, the sculptor chosen to complete this commission, decided to echo these values visually by using three di erent

Two nursing pioneers are the rst females to be represented in the RCSI Portrait Sculpture Collection. Antonia Hart meets the artist, John Rainey

marbles. e portraits are sculpted from Carrara marble, with dark grey Kilkenny marble bases, and midsections of green Connemara marble. He sourced the Connemara marble from a quarry in Recess, Co Galway. “ e Connemara marble is a very striking, beautiful stone that has mythical associations with wellbeing and health. While these associations may have more to do with ancient mysticism than modern medicine, they speak to a heritage of healing, and to the way people, over time, have sought to improve health.”

While the process of shaping and nishing a sculpture in stone can be done entirely by hand, it has also bene ted from technological advances. Rainey rst created digital sculptures of O’Farrell and Nightingale in CAD so ware. “ en it’s carved by Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) robots, using a sequence of increasingly ne drill bits. e three sections of marble in each piece were then secured together and nished by hand.” It took about three months to complete the physical production of the portraits. “I’ve worked a lot with 3D printing technology since 2010 but this commission allowed me to start working with CNC technology, and marble as a material, for the rst time.”

Digital fabrication technologies like 3D printing and scanning have also transformed processes in the medical world, but just as in the art world, any meaningful application requires human knowledge and experience. Technology provides tools, but it is Rainey’s years of material experience and skill that lends substance to the work and brings out the best in the stone.

John Rainey was born in 1985 and grew up in Omagh. As a child he was drawn to creativity, hooked on model making, and dismantling toys to gure out how they were put together. He describes his route through art education, a primary degree in Contemporary Crafts at Manchester Metropolitan University, and an MA in Ceramics and Glass at the Royal College of Art, as being materials-led, with ceramics his medium of choice.

“I’m inspired by many art forms, from painting and collage, to animation, but there’s something about the way sculpture occupies space and sits within our world that really

fuels my imagination.” is idea of the space a sculptural piece requisitions, and its physical coexistence with us, makes huge sense when you see the two busts in the Atrium. Rainey suggests that the bust form requires the viewer to zone in on the most characteristic elements of the subject. At the same time, the pieces somehow incorporate a complete, rather than a partial, presence. “ ere’s a way that a bust mounted on a plinth at the correct height takes on the presence of the full body. at works really e ectively with the way we’ve installed these pieces.”

Rainey is used to making representations without direct access to a live subject. In his early work he made computer-generated portraits using online images, without direct interaction with the subject. “It was a way of thinking about the changing nature of human interaction with the advent of social networks, and the access to an abundance of images of people and their lives that was suddenly available on these platforms.”

This remote method of portrait-making resurfaced in RCSI’s commission. “I had the opposite of an abundance of images, particularly in the case of Elizabeth O’Farrell. I knew I would have to cast a wider net, bringing in paintings and existing sculptures, representations in popular culture, in lm and television, as well as archival and literary records, and artistic licence. With Florence Nightingale, there’s such mythology around her, some con icting. I had to

THE PORTRAITS ARE SCULPTED FROM CARRARA MARBLE, WITH DARK GREY KILKENNY MARBLE BASES, AND MIDSECTIONS OF GREEN CONNEMARA MARBLE.

Susan Leyden, RCSI Archivist, sculptor John Rainey and Brendan Joyce, Irish Green Marble, as they install the new sculptural portraits at RCSI.

John Rainey, Dr Mary Boyd, Dean of the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Louise O’Reilly, CEO, Business to Arts, Rachel Assaf, Curatorial Projects Manager, Business to Arts, Aíne Gibbons, Chair, RCSI Art Committee, Director of Development and Alumni Relations, Professor Thomas Kearns, Executive Director, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery.

RAINEY SUGGESTS THAT THE BUST FORM REQUIRES THE VIEWER TO ZONE IN ON THE MOST CHARACTERISTIC ELEMENTS OF THE SUBJECT.

read between the lines and try to learn about her objectively.” It’s not just a case of processing archival information into a literal, factual portrayal. “Really, the job is to weave the research into a sculptural storytelling that captures peoples’ imaginations.”

Details, or a single detail, can conjure that story. “With Nightingale, for example, it felt important to include the early form of nursing cap that she pioneered, as a symbol of the professionalism that she introduced into nursing.” In O’Farrell’s case, because available photographic records withheld certain details, Rainey delved into the world of early 20th-century Irish women’s hairstyles. Again, clothing carries meaning. “O’Farrell is represented with a hint of her professional uniform under a large overcoat, similarly to lmic depictions of her role in the Rising. ere’s an androgynous quality to it, intended to echo RCSI’s full- gure sculpture of Countess Markievicz in uniform, and suggest the shared history of the two women.”

e combination of uniform and outerwear re ects that both women contributed inside and outside their professions. e story everyone knows about O’Farrell is that she, with Pearse, delivered the surrender to General Lowe at the end of Easter Week, and she carried the surrender order to the Volunteer garrisons, including one situated at RCSI. A newspaper photograph recorded O’Farrell’s presence at the surrender, but in reproductions the visible parts of her were erased. It is particularly moving to see O’Farrell now portrayed in a material as durable as stone. “ e permanence of marble and its associations with commemoration and worthiness were in my mind,” Rainey says. “ ere is something especially tting about having her marble bust sited in the heart of RCSI.”

Rainey was twelve at the time of the Omagh bombing, months a er the Good Friday Agreement was signed. It stamped in him an early respect for the work of medical sta . “One of the ways this commission has stayed with

me is in a renewed appreciation and admiration for the people who worked in medical professions during that time. Particularly nurses who cared for victims over long periods of recovery.” e strangeness of seeing his home town and its trauma relayed through media across the world immediately a er the bombing sparked questions about representation which inform his work today. “Fissures between reality and representation are a long-running theme in my work. People o en connect my work to surrealism. I think some of those qualities originate from that experience.”

It is always striking when something familiar is represented in an unfamiliar or subverted way, or outside the expected context. “Something that excited me about this project was the representation of women in a format typically associated with representations of men. And the opportunity to contribute to redressing the gender imbalance of representations of historical gures in public collections; to intervene when history has been too selective.” anks to research by RCSI archivist Susan Leyden, members of O’Farrell’s family were at the unveiling. For Rainey, this was an unexpected highlight of the commission. “Her great-nephew Ian Kelly told me that he felt the portrait had a sense of Elizabeth ‘rising up’. at felt like such an important idea in the context of this commission, it seemed to encompass the histories of these women, the focus on the contributions of women, the vibrancy of the Faculty and School of Nursing and Midwifery and the tenacity of people working in those professions.” ■

RCSI PORTRAIT SCULPTURE COLLECTION

Discover more fascinating detail about RCSI's Portrait Sculpture Collection https://youtu.be/7qbsLXs99DQ

RCSI archivist Susan Leyden and sculptor John Rainey during the installation of the sculptures.

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DOING THE ROUNDS

NEWS, APPOINTMENTS AND CAMPUS UPDATES

disciplines, including public health and epidemiology, data science, health psychology, healthcare outcomes and global surgery. It will drive multidisciplinary initiatives in research, develop educational programmes and work with a diverse range of national and global partners to positively impact population health.

POPULATION HEALTH RCSI’S NEW SCHOOL

RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences’ new School of Population Health will seek to better understand and address the complex and ever-changing barriers to better health, in Ireland and globally.

The School will build on the University’s legacy of impact in population and public health, which can be traced back to the 1840s when Sir Charles Cameron, former RCSI President, campaigned to improve public health in Dublin. The University established a division of

population health sciences in 2006 and, more recently, RCSI experts became trusted voices throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic saw unprecedented cooperation between disciplines and speed of scholarship and dissemination, as well as a strengthening of the relationship between health and economics. The School will build on this progress, and on advances in technology and big data, with a particular emphasis on reducing health inequalities and focusing efforts in vulnerable subgroups of the population.

The School integrates multiple scientific

Professor Juan Carlos Puyana appointed O’Brien Chair of Global Surgery

Professor Juan Carlos Puyana has been appointed O’Brien Chair of Global Surgery. Professor Puyana will lead the University’s Institute of Global Surgery in its work to improve access to high-quality, essential surgical care for underserved populations. Professor Puyana said: “I strongly agree with the University’s vision of global surgery as a discipline seeking to create sustainable in-country systems to meet the surgical needs of their populations, by building on long-standing local and regional collaborations. I greatly look forward to working with the team of educators and investigators at the Institute of Global Surgery to advance its important and impactful work.”

Professor Edward Gregg is the inaugural Chair and Head of the School. He was recently awarded €4.3 million in funding from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) through its prestigious Research Professorship Programme to bring together new data and develop novel ways to measure health impact and determine what approaches work best to reduce the risk of diabetes and other chronic conditions. One tenth of the world’s adults have diabetes. In Ireland, the number of people living with Type 2 diabetes has almost doubled in the past 15 years, accounting for more than €550 million per year in direct healthcare costs.

“We will establish new, smarter disease registries to determine whay works best in the real world,” said Professor Gregg. “This will help public health leaders to prioritise approaches that will change the future risk and damage caused by diabetes and other chronic conditions.”

THE CAMERON AWARD FOR POPULATION HEALTH

Professor Andrew Morris, inaugural Director of Health Data Research UK, was awarded RCSI’s Cameron Award for Population Health in March 2023. “We are proud to present the Cameron Award to Professor Andrew Morris,” said Professor Cathal Kelly, Vice Chancellor, RCSI, at the ceremony. “Our new School of Population Health builds on Sir Cameron’s legacy to reduce health inequalities.”

Professor Andrew Morris Professor Juan Carlos Puyana

Launch of new School of Population Health at RCSI.

AN HONORARY FELLOWSHIP FOR BROADCASTER RAY D’ARCY

In February 2023, Ray D’Arcy was awarded an honorary fellowship of the RCSI Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery in recognition of his contribution to mental health advocacy. Dr Mary Boyd, Dean of the Faculty explained why he was such a worthy recipient of the award: “Mental health is a fundamental strategic education and research area linked to the global non-communicable disease agenda. An essential part of this agenda is the need to create a voice and a space to discuss mental health and empower people to take control of their treatment and management of mental health issues. Ray’s ability to conduct compassionate interviews has made a significant difference to people’s lives by providing those in mental distress with a platform for discussion, support and advice and we see his work as being hugely influential in this regard.”

Ray said he was accepting the award on behalf of the hundreds of people who have shared their mental health stories with him over the years, sometimes publicly for the first time. “It was obvious to me that a lot of these people had no voice, it was a privilege to provide them with a platform and in doing so advocate for better mental health services and reduce the stigma around mental illness.”

Unwell and injured teddies gathered for the annual Teddy Bear Hospital in January 2023.

“The Teddy Bear Hospital is a highlight in the RCSI University calendar,” said Alexe Nguyen, President of the RCSI Paediatric Society. “It’s so enjoyable to see how the children are so engaged and willing to learn about health and wellbeing every year. We

RCSI HOSTS ANNUAL TEDDY BEAR HOSPITAL e RCSI Art Award 2022

In June 2022, Colin Davidson was announced as the winner of the RCSI Art Award 2022. The prize was awarded for Glen, his 3D portrait of Glen Hansard, Irish songwriter, actor, vocalist and guitarist for the group The Frames.

The artwork was selected from 570 works that were on display at the 192nd RHA Annual Exhibition 2022, Ireland’s largest and longest

were delighted to host special sessions for children with disabilities and serious illnesses too. These are so important in familiarising sick children with the different aspects of the medical environment they might encounter in a non-frightening way. Our volunteers learned a thing or two from the children too!”

running exhibition of visual art. Davidson was awarded €5,000 and the RCSI silver medal and will be invited to submit a proposal for a new work for 118 St Stephen’s Green, the next phase of RCSI’s campus development in Dublin city. Now in its seventh year, the RCSI Art Award in association with the RHA Annual Exhibition and The Irish Times was established to recognise the connection between art and healing.

Broadcaster Ray D’Arcy and Dr Mary Boyd.

Caoilinn Cluskey and student An Ha at RCSI’s Teddy Bear Hospital.

Artist Colin Davidson, with Glen Hansard.

SUMMER AND WINTER CONFERRINGS RCSI CONFERS MORE THAN 1,000 GRADUATES

RCSI’s 2022 summer conferring ceremonies saw a new cohort of medical students being officially conferred in a ceremony at the Convention Centre Dublin. Candidates were presented by RCSI Vice Chancellor, Professor Cathal Kelly, and conferred by then RCSI President, Professor Ronan O’Connell. Over 330 degrees were conferred across Honours Degrees of Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Medical Sciences, Honours Degrees of Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery, Bachelor of Obstetrics (MB, BCh, BAO) and LRCP & SI. A further 205 candidates were conferred at ceremonies for those graduating from the School of Postgraduate Studies, the School of Physiotherapy, and the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular

Studies. Congratulating all those graduating, RCSI Vice Chancellor, Professor Cathal Kelly, said: “Your conferring today is a wonderful celebration of your achievements and a tribute to each and every one of you. The recent years have been immeasurably challenging and your hard work, resilience and dedication to improving human health will be long remembered.” RCSI’s 2022 winter conferring marked the largest ever conferring event for the University, with more than 740 degrees awarded in Nursing and Midwifery, including Masters, Bachelor of Sciences, Postgraduate and Professional Certificates and Postgraduate Diplomas. A number of special awards were also presented at the ceremony, including the Florence Nightingale Committee of Ireland Award, the Mary Frances Crowley Award and the Rose Lanigan Award.

e graduation of the rst cohort of Lifestyle Medicine students

In July 2022, RCSI celebrated the conferring of the first cohort of students to complete the new Certificate in Lifestyle Medicine. Professor Anne Hickey, Deputy Dean for Positive Education at RCSI, said: “It is our great honour to celebrate the first graduation ceremony of the RCSI Certificate in Lifestyle Medicine. Each and every one of the students who have completed this programme deserves huge congratulations on being part of the first cohort of RCSI students to complete this new optional Certificate.”

WHITE COAT CEREMONIES

More than 570 students took part in RCSI’s White Coat Ceremonies in October 2022.

The students were addressed by RCSI Vice Chancellor, Professor Cathal Kelly, Professor Denis Harkin, Chair of Medical Professionalism, Professor Clive Lee, Professor of Anatomy, and Professor Celine Marmion, Deputy Dean for Student Engagement, all of whom offered their best wishes and advice to the students as they embarked on their health sciences studies.

Professor Harkin told the students: “Your good days may be someone else’s bad days, so approach with

caution and care, and also ask for and give compassion and support to your fellow students. You will all work together as part of an interprofessional healthcare team with the common goal of leading the world to better health.”

Professor Kelly described the ceremony as “a momentous occasion for our newest healthcare students, their families and friends. These students are commencing their studies at a time of great challenge and change, and also one of great opportunity.”

Tenzin Jampel, Mairead Fleming, Ciara Gough, Kaye Montefalcon and Eleftherios Nikolopoulos graduated with Postgraduate Diplomas in Nursing from RCSI.

Ruth Wilson, David Sheill and Phoebe Warren graduated with degrees in Physiotherapy from RCSI.

PROJECT CONNECT TRANSFORMATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AT 118 ST STEPHEN’S GREEN

The official launch of construction at 118 St Stephen’s Green, the next phase of RCSI’s campus development in Dublin’s city centre, was marked in May 2022. The €95 million expansion project, also known as Project Connect, will enrich the student experience at RCSI and provide vital infrastructure for pioneering health sciences research and innovation, as well as creating a space for local community engagement.

A key design element of 118 St Stephen’s Green is its physical link to RCSI’s presence at 26 York Street, significantly opening up RCSI’s education space for the estimated 3,000 students and staff who visit the campus daily for study, work and extracurricular activities. The development will be home to the new RCSI School of Population Health, the RCSI Graduate School of Healthcare Management, and a 50sq m virtual reality surgical training space for the National Surgical Training Centre, three floors of state-of-the-art laboratory and writeup and support facilities for existing and new research programmes and initiatives.

The development will renew RCSI’s historic connection with St Stephen’s Green by becoming the new “front door” of the campus. It will include a new civic engagement space for public events and exhibitions, aligning with RCSI’s goal of enabling people to live long and healthy lives.

RCSI maintains position in top 250 worldwideuniversities

RCSI was again ranked among the top 250 universities in the world in the 2023 Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings.

The global education environment is increasingly competitive, with greater numbers participating in the World University Rankings each year. “Maintaining our position in the Top 250 for the seventh year is testament to the dedication of our students, faculty, researchers, clinicians and professional staff,” said Professor Cathal Kelly, RCSI Vice Chancellor. “The rankings provide an important signal of the quality of the education experience at RCSI and

the impact of our research. RCSI’s particularly strong performance in the research elements of the rankings is a result of our continued investment in the patient-focused research of our academics, clinicians and educators.”

RCSI School of Medicine recognised for excellence in Student Engagement

The School of Medicine at RCSI has been named joint winner of the 2022 ASPIRE to Excellence Award for Student Engagement.

Students are equal partners in RCSI’s key decision-making processes, in their education and research and in serving our wider communities. This meaningful partnership between RCSI students and staff has cultivated an academic environment wherein students have real agency and have the opportunity to build the knowledge and skills that will enable them to become change-makers as they advance in their careers. The ASPIRE award is testimony to the work led by RCSI’s Deputy Dean for Student Engagement, Professor Celine Marmion, who together with students and staff, has embedded a universal culture of student engagement and partnership right across RCSI.

“The achievement of this award demonstrates our efforts in Student Engagement while the impact of this achievement will be felt by communities worldwide, for generations to come,” said Amit Kalra, President of the RCSI Students’ Union, while Tim Vaughan-Ogunlusi, RCSI medical student representative on the StEP Committee, explained how RCSI has developed a unique and equitable culture of student partnership which is woven into the institution’s fabric: “We are delighted that those efforts have been recognised in this prestigious award.”

Then RCSI Vice President, Professor Laura Viani, Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Simon Harris TD; and then RCSI President, Professor Ronan O’Connell, pictured with future healthcare leaders at the official launch of Project Connect.

GOOGLE CHIEF HEALTH OFFICER RECEIVES EMILY WINIFRED DICKSON AWARD

Dr Karen DeSalvo, Google Chief Health Officer, received the Emily Winifred Dickson Award from RCSI in October 2022, in recognition of her outstanding impact in public health.

RCSI established the Emily Winifred Dickson Award in honour of the achievements of a pioneering woman in healthcare and to recognise other women who have broken boundaries in their field.

Congratulating Dr DeSalvo, RCSI Vice Chancellor, Professor Cathal Kelly said: “The pandemic has sharpened our understanding of the impact of inequitable access to healthcare and health information on outcomes, as well as the role of technology in driving behaviour change. We are deeply committed to building greater understanding of the determinants of disease so that we can play our part in improving health in Ireland and globally. We know that Dr DeSalvo shares that goal and we are delighted to have the opportunity to recognise her enormous and continuing contribution to public health today.”

RCSI educator named Most Innovative Teacher of the Year

RCSI’s Dr Michael Daly won the Most Innovative Teacher of the Year award at the 18th annual Times Higher Education (THE) Awards in November 2022. Dr Daly, a clinical lecturer in cardiology, developed a series of patient-centred learning experiences that are consistently rated as ‘inspirational’ by students. Dr Daly’s recognition as the Most Innovative Teacher, from a shortlist of the most innovative educators across the UK and Ireland, is testament to his creativity, passion and innovative approach.

RCSI BAHRAIN NEW SOLAR FARM PROJECT

In June 2022, RCSI Bahrain hosted a ceremony at its Busaiteen campus to celebrate the launch of its Solar Farm project; making it one of the first universities in Bahrain to utilise solar power.

The solar farm, which will be completed in 2023, will cover 12,000sq m with 4,854 solar panels and produce an expected yearly energy production of 3.54MWh, equivalent to 55% of RCSI Bahrain’s current energy consumption. This project contributes to an annual saving of 2,247 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) per year.

This launch marked the start of RCSI Bahrain’s Green Campus initiative to enhance campus sustainability and promote environmentally conscious practices. Green Campus comprises the reduction of power consumption and single-use plastics, the paperless office and increased tree planting. In 2021, RCSI Bahrain planted 39 trees on its campus. ■

Professor Sameer Otoom, President of RCSI Bahrain received the World Health Organization for the Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office (WHO EMRO) Healthy University certification from Dr Ahmed Salim Al-Mandhari, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, in February 2023. Her Excellency Dr Jaleela bint Alsayed Jawad Hasan, Minister of Health, Her Excellency Dr Shaikha Rana bint Isa bin Duaij Al Khalifa, Secretary General of the Higher Education Council and Deputy Chairperson of the Higher Education Council Board of Trustees, and executive members of RCSI Bahrain were all in attendance.

“We are very pleased with the Healthy University certification from WHO EMRO,” said Professor Otoom, ”which is a testament to our continuing efforts to positively impact the health and wellbeing of our students and staff and our commitment to supporting Bahrain’s 2030 Vision through various sustainable initiatives for the benefit of the people of Bahrain. We are proud to be continually working towards a more environmentally sustainable campus and promoting good health and wellbeing, by implementing our solar farm project and various health-related community engagement activities.”

Dr Karen DeSalvo, Google Chief Health Officer

THE Awards host Steven Mangan, Dr Michael Daly, winner of THE Awards Most Innovative Teacher of the Year, and Alison Johns, Chief Executive of Advance HE.

The RCSI Bahrain team receiving WHO EMRO Healthy University Certification in February 2023.

RCSI BAHRAIN CERTIFIED AS HEALTHY UNIVERSITY

YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU

e lack of primary care physicians in rural populations worldwide is troubling, and those RCSI alumni who work in such locations all share a desire to serve the underserved

DR MICHAEL HARTY MEDICINE Class of 1977

Retired GP, Kilmihil, Co Clare, Ireland

I was appointed to a single-doctor practice in Kilmihil in West Clare in 1984. At the time I hadn’t decided whether it was for the long term, but my wife Gerry worked as my practice nurse, we built a house and the children went to school locally. I retired in February 2022 a er 37 years, and there were no applicants for my job. e Health Service Executive (HSE) took over the practice for ve months and then appointed a couple who are both GPs. ey are doing very well.

e biggest challenge of rural practice is that you’re running a small to medium-sized business, which we were not educated to do. We were trained to be doctors, but not to be responsible for everything from the building to the computer system. When things go wrong, the buck stops with you. Quite o en I was the last person to be paid.

e problem of professional isolation has eased over the years as the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) has developed. ey broke down a lot of barriers which existed previously among GPs, and increased our collegiality and support for one other.

It was always very di cult to get locum cover to get a break, and that became wearing, the fact that you were dependent upon the kindness of others to get a holiday. e advent of the co-op system was a huge leap forward, it meant I was no longer on a one-in-one or one-in-two rota. I was lucky to be on a one-in- ve rota, and later a one-in-ten. Because you were a self-employed contractor rather than an employee, you were le out on a limb by the HSE who hadn’t any great interest in supporting general practice.

e situation isn’t a whole lot better now. I campaigned on the ‘no doctor no village’ banner and was elected to the Dáil. e campaign was much wider than it sounds, it was about the maintenance and development of the services – garda stations, post o ces, schools etc – that make up a rural community. ey were and still are under threat. When I came to West Clare there were eleven full-time contract holders, and now there are ve, and other people who have part-time contracts and work a couple of days a week, which is very important for their own work-life balance but means the pressure on the existing practices is intense.

I found the whole experience in the Dáil quite frustrating. As a GP, I was used

to doing things and nding solutions, in the Dáil things work a little slower. I was part of the Sláintecare Committee, which sat for a year. It was a very positive, pro-active, cross-party committee, which devised a blueprint for health reform. One of the fundamental building blocks was the development of a strong, integrated primary care service, to include general practice but also public health nursing, community intervention teams and nursing homes, delivering services within the community as opposed to delivering them within the hospital structure. at hasn’t happened. It requires a doubling of GP numbers if we are to deliver true quality primary care services, and until that happens recruitment will be very di cult because the workload is too onerous.

e ICGP and the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) are anxious that the independent contractor system continue, and I do believe it delivers quality service, but when it can’t continue in rural areas then the HSE has to consider employing salaried GPs or establishing incentives, such as the provision of premises and sta , so the GPs can concentrate on delivering medical services. Trying to convince the Government to introduce a policy which would sustain practice under pressure has not succeeded so far.

As a rural GP you may be 50 miles away from a secondary or tertiary hospital, so you take on more responsibility. ere is a di erent quality to the practice, you are more independent but it is wearing. You take on a lot of palliative care, and chronic disease management, and you support people living in isolated areas, perhaps alone. You become involved in the local community and its organisations.

On a personal and family level, the level of social isolation is not as bad as it was, the world has become a little smaller. And professional isolation is decreasing, because we have a very good continuing medical education network which meets once a month. We’re not competing with each other any more, because there are more patients than anyone can deal with.

Rural practice is a very satisfying type of practice to become involved in. I wouldn’t like to put people o it in any way, but it does have its challenges.”

“THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE OF RURAL PRACTICE IS THAT YOU’RE RUNNING A SMALL TO MEDIUM-SIZED BUSINESS, WHICH WE WERE NOT EDUCATED TO DO.”

DR TAYLOR JESPERSEN MEDICINE Class of 2020 Family Doctor, Vernan, British Columbia, Canada

I grew up in a small community in Canada and always envisaged coming back to a similar place to practise family medicine, so I sought a predominantly rural training programme. Every rural residency is di erent, but I spent my rst year in an urban centre and tertiary hospital, where I saw acute medicine and participated in a wide variety of work with di erent specialists, and during my second year I spent four months each in the very rural communities of Revelstoke and Smithers in British Columbia (BC).

In these communities there were well-supported hospitals run almost entirely by family doctors. We did obstetrics, and there were doctors trained to do Caesarean sections, emergency surgeries, colonoscopies, anaesthesia and other specialised skills. I enjoyed the type of medicine that I could do in a more rural community in terms of the scope of my practice and the breadth of skill involved.

My rural residency coincided with getting married, buying a house, my husband getting his long-term career position and deciding to start a family, and the prospect of being in an isolated rural community with no family support to help us raise a child made us rethink. We decided that a smaller community which is not classi ed as rural but would allow me to have a

greater scope of practice was a happy medium for us.

I now work in a full-scope, longitudinal family practice with a full spectrum of patients from babies to elderly patients. ere’s a shortage of family doctors across the whole of Canada, in BC there are over one million people who don’t have a family doctor.

While rural medicine in Ireland is very di erent to rural medicine in Canada, recruitment di culties and inequity of access is common to both. e extra layers that Canada has are the vastness of our geography and our indigenous people.

When I did an elective in Saskatoon I worked in the Cancer Agency with young males with testicular cancer. Many were from northern Saskatchewan, a 10-14-hour drive away, and were choosing to forgo treatment or surgery because they could not either nancially or in terms of time a ord to come to Saskatoon for treatment. It’s not that the service wasn’t there, it was that they couldn’t access it.

Canada is a vast beast. We have patients who are a 30-hour drive away, and no way of getting an aeroplane or helicopter to them. You can only access some communities in the dead of winter via ice roads, which melt in the summer and cut o access. e geography aspect is fascinating to me.”

“WE HAVE PATIENTS WHO ARE A 30-HOUR DRIVE AWAY, AND NO WAY OF GETTING AN AEROPLANE OR HELICOPTER TO THEM.”

Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada

DR LAURA CULLEN MEDICINE Class of 2009 GP, Bantry, Co Cork, Ireland

A er my intern year, I went straight onto the North Inner City GP Scheme started by Dr Austin O’Carroll. I knew I wanted to work in disadvantaged urban settings. en I met my now partner, and moved to West Cork in 2017. Because so many rural GPs are retiring, there were many opportunities for me. I settled on the practice I felt was culturally right.

Bantry has a large, remote rural hinterland. It’s a medium to larger practice, and we are growing rapidly. We haven’t closed our books yet, but other practices in the area have. It is di cult for more vulnerable patients who don’t have transport to get to the doctor, and although it’s not an e cient use of GP time for us to be on the road making house calls, I regularly visit elderly people 40 minutes’ drive away.

Because many GPs who are retiring are not being replaced, the workload is heavier for the rest of us in terms of call frequency. e out-of-hours service is under pressure. I usually work 12-16 hours per month on top of my day job, which isn’t too bad, but one third of my rota is due to retire within the next ve years. In other towns, where there is already a greater shortage of GPs, the system is collapsing. We have to look to allied health professionals such as community paramedics and advanced nurse practitioners for the provision of out-of-hours and on-call services, and give them the training they need.

We have a community hospital but no access to paediatrics, surgery, oncology or obstetrics and gynaecology locally. ose services are mainly in Cork. While I understand we need centres of excellence, the consequence is that our patients are on the back foot when it comes to certain types of care. I’ve always had an interest in sexual health and gynaecology, and I have developed a role for myself as a primary care gynaecology and sexual health doctor. In rural areas, the lack of services for disadvantaged and marginalised communities is made worse by the fact that these people are less likely to be able to a ord a car. Getting help for people in homelessness or those with addiction is much more di cult compared to urban environments, and my role as an advocate is made much harder by the fact that poverty is o en hidden and shame around it is rife.

I have had multiple experiences of sitting with patients for hours on end waiting for ambulances to arrive. When the HSE shut down the emergency departments in the community hospitals, continued provision of care required many more ambulances. is didn’t happen.

We are not going to attract new GPs if things stay the way they are.”

“IN OTHER TOWNS, WHERE THERE IS ALREADY A GREATER SHORTAGE OF GPS, THE SYSTEM IS COLLAPSING.”

Bantry, Co Cork, Ireland

DR PAT NAIDOO MEDICINE

Class of 1976

Emergency Medicine

Consultant, Townsville, Queensland, Australia

Formerly: Retrieval Doctor, Aspen Medical, Western Australia

I have worked mainly in Australia since graduating from RCSI in 1976. My retrieval positions have included working with the Australian Defence Force in East Timor and the Solomon Islands, supporting both the defence force and the civilian community, and within Australia. From 2011 to 2022, I worked with Aspen Medical retrieval service in the oil and gas sector in Western Australia.

Australia has a large land mass and low-density population. Rural and remote areas have limited or no access to specialised health services and retrievals from these areas involve distances ranging from several hundred to several thousand kilometres. My ‘ y in, y out’ roster included three weeks of 24/7 care in the gas and oil eld sectors with many retrievals, both onshore and o shore, taking six-eight hours.

e retrieval system provides patients with rapid access to the skills of a specialised doctor in emergency, anaesthetics or intensive care who facilitates transfer to better equipped urban hospitals. is is a process that provides specialised assessment and management prior to and during transfer of critically ill patients from areas where resources are inadequate to a destination of de nitive care.

e Australian retrieval system uses centralised coordination centres and teams of nurses, doctors and paramedics with complementary skills and experience. Transport platforms use helicopters, xed-wing aircra , road transport and marine resources. e evacuation of a medical patient

in a helicopter looks dramatic on television but we minimise the drama and complexity without sacri cing the quality of care.

Aeromedical settings provide a challenging clinical environment and retrieval sta must meet required professional standards in critical care, emergency or anaesthetics and must have speci c training in the retrieval environment and critical care in transport settings.

e advantages are that the work is fast-paced and exciting, interesting and diverse. You have to know how to respond to many and varied situations.

e work is demanding and requires challenging interventions and the provision of 24/7 on-call care. It can be emotionally and mentally exhausting because you o en see patients with severe and traumatic conditions. e role is pressurised because trauma-related cases require immediate decisionmaking and because you o en work in isolation your skills must extend across all specialities.”

“ON A PERSONAL LEVEL, DOCTORS HAVE DIFFICULTY IN MAINTAINING PRIVATE LIVES GIVEN THE LACK OF ANONYMITY IN SMALL COMMUNITIES.”

Dr Pat Naidoo

DR TERRY LYONS MEDICINE Class of 1987 Family Doctor, Yarrahah, North Queensland, Australia

My introduction to rural medicine was as a student on the rural rotation to Kilkenny which encouraged me to apply for the medical internship rotation there. Kilkenny provided excellent teaching, training and craic.

A er intern year, I went to the Ibn Al-Bitar Hospital in Baghdad and then to the UK where I did accident and emergency, orthopaedics, paediatrics and anaesthetics.

I moved to Australia in 1990 and joined the College of GPs’ rural clinical training pilot project in Toowoomba, Queensland. I did some more anaesthetics, obstetrics and psychiatry, and then rural placements. Australia is an exciting place to work, particularly in the bush. Rural doctors have the opportunity to work in both primary and secondary care in remote settings.

A er Toowoomba, I started working as a GP Anaesthetist and Obstetrician in remote areas, including the Torres Strait Islands, which have an indigenous population, and Catherine in the Northern Territory, where I worked in a hospital and did outreach clinics as a district medical o cer.

My wife, Geraldine MacCarrick, is also a GP, and an academic and hospital administrator. We have worked in a lot of di erent states and did a few years in a rural practice in Ireland too. Now we are semi-retired and work as rural locums.

I’m no longer doing anaesthetics and obstetrics, but I do emergency medicine and general practice, and run small rural hospitals and outreach clinics. We’re

just back from a trip to Western Australia (from our home in Huon Valley, Tasmania), and we’re heading up to Cairns, in the far north of Queensland; we’ll be there for four weeks.

ere’s a shortage of doctors everywhere but early exposure to rural medicine is very important when it comes to recruitment. It certainly helped in terms of sparking my interest. In very remote areas where recruitment is di cult, the government employs senior medical o cers on well-paid contracts with plenty of time o . When I work as a locum it’s o en to cover their leave.

In Australia, the indigenous population has speci c problems. e people are dispossessed, and they’ve got the problems of poverty, alcohol, and no work. In remote communities, diet is a problem because good food is expensive. So diabetes is a huge issue, as are all the alcohol-related and sexually-transmitted diseases, and childhood neglect. Life expectancy is 15-20 years less than for non-indigenous people. Part of the problem of recruitment is that some of these communities are not safe, they can be violent and they are not somewhere that as a doctor you can bring your family to live. Many doctors work on ‘ y in, y out’ contracts.

Now we have the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) which is the rst rural college of medicine in the world. I’m one of the foundation fellows. ere have been tremendous developments in rural medicine since its inception. e doctors are very well trained in general medicine and they choose a specialist skill as well. Because the sun shines so much here we all do a lot of skin cancer treatments. You’re always looking at what your community needs and where the de ciencies are.”

“THERE’S A SHORTAGE OF DOCTORS EVERYWHERE BUT EARLY EXPOSURE TO RURAL MEDICINE IS VERY IMPORTANT WHEN IT COMES TO RECRUITMENT.”

Huan Valley, Tasmania, Australia

DR MARK WILLCOX MEDICINE Class of 2009 GP, Scotland (recently moved to Australia)

For six years, I was a GP on the Isle of Barra, in the Outer Hebrides and then I moved to the mainland to the very northwest of Scotland, to a place called Tongue, which probably doesn’t even gure on any maps. Both places are quite remote, with very real and di erent challenges.

I was in the army and did a degree in marine biology before going to RCSI to do Graduate Entry Medicine. A er my intern year in Ireland, I did some orthopaedics and gynaecology because I felt that for a rural GP those were important. I did my GP training in Liverpool.

I grew up on the Western coast of Scotland but I had no connection with Barra when the job came up. e retiring GP had been advertising for a couple of years – he probably wouldn’t have taken someone fresh from GP school if he’d had the choice. But he took me on and was a great mentor. We overlapped for four and a half years.

During the pandemic, he stayed in the surgery and I took care of the hospital and seeing anyone with respiratory symptoms and the COVID-19 patients. It was a rough 18 months. When he retired I carried on for 18 months, but it’s not a job you can do 24/7, 365 days a year. I have a family, and it wasn’t feasible. During the pandemic my family went to stay on the mainland and we were separated for ve months. It was very di cult.

When I moved to the mainland I came to a practice that hadn’t had a GP for four or ve years, and had lost its practice nurse and practice manager. I’ve been here since December 2022 assessing the situation for the Health Board but now I’ve decided to move to Australia.

e real di culty in rural practices is with patients who become acutely unwell and how you get them to secondary care. In some ways it was easier on Barra, because even though it was much more isolated we had a community hospital where I could admit patients and stabilise them while I was waiting for the air ambulance. In bad weather, that air ambulance might not arrive for four days, but I could do the basics in a hospital. On the mainland, although we’re only two and a half hours away from a hospital, you could be snowed in for two or three days and the ambulances are under a great deal of pressure. Doing that pre-hospital medicine, you’re on your own, without nurses. e only support sta in the practice are two part-time receptionist/dispensers. It’s just not viable.

I love my job. It’s a huge honour and privilege to be a general practitioner, wherever you are. And the additional aspect of doing pre-hospital medicine, dealing with car crashes and emergencies is interesting medicine, if you can step aside from the immediate stress of the situation. So primary care has a real role. But in the UK we’re in a period of quite terrible cutbacks and change, and the situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

I remember these issues being discussed when I was a child growing up on the west coast of Scotland and 40 years later it’s worse, not better. I don’t think this is peculiar to the UK or to Scotland – talking to friends in Canada and Ireland I hear the same stories.” ■

“THE REAL DIFFICULTY IN RURAL PRACTICES IS WITH PATIENTS WHO BECOME ACUTELY UNWELL AND HOW YOU GET THEM TO SECONDARY CARE.”

Isle of Barra, Scotland

BIOSOC 90TH ANNUAL ADDRESS

The 90th inaugural address of the Biological Society took place in 123 St Stephen’s Green in January 2023. Annual BioSoc prizes and medals were awarded, including the Mary Leader Medal in Pathology, presented to students Alyssa Chow, Riaz Jiffry and Natalija Lakic. Riaz and Natalija are photographed here with Professor Mark Sherlock (Class of 2000), Faculty President of the Biological Society.

ARCHERY CLUB

RCSI’s Archery Club was on target when members took part in intervarsity competitions hosted by DCU and IADT, with one student placed first in the Recurve Beginner Men’s competition and another in third in the Recurve Beginner Women’s competition.

COLLEGE BALL

Organised by the Student Union and always one of the highlights of RCSI’s social calendar, this year’s College Ball transported students to Paris’ Pigalle circa 1899, with a theme of ‘Moulin Rouge’. Students donned extravagant feather headdresses and red velvet ensembles and enjoyed an evening of live jazz and dancing.

CAUGHT ON CAMPUS

On and o campus, RCSI undergraduates made the most of student life ...

ART & PHOTOGRAPHY SOCIETIES

In April, students were treated to a Spring Exhibition of work created by RCSI’s Art and Photography Societies.

CLIMBING CLUB

The tough and resilient members of RCSI’s Climbing and Mountaineering Club are pictured here on an overnight trip to tackle Mangerton Mountain, in the stunning surroundings of Killarney National Park, Co Kerry.

CONSILIO MANUQUE AWARDS 2023

At the Desmond Auditorium in February, Med 4 student Ciarán Browne was one of several students recognised for academic achievements, at the annual Consilio Manuque Awards. Ciarán is pictured here with Professor Hannah McGee, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs.

TEDDY BEAR HOSPITAL

This year more than 450 children visited the Paediatric Society’s Teddy Bear Hospital, where teddy bear doctors fixed any rips or tears and explained how to best take care of teddies, with the aim of alleviating childhood fears about healthcare environments and increasing health literacy in school-aged children.

UNDERGRAD OPEN DAY

At 26 York Street in January, the Undergraduate Open Day provided prospective students with information about admissions, programmes, facilities, student life and career supports available. Career-focused workshops in Medicine, Pharmacy, Advanced Therapeutic Technologies and Physiotherapy took place in RCSI’s state-of-the-art clinical simulation facilities.

COMMEMORATION OF MAJOR THOMAS J. CREAN

In March, a small contingent from RCSI Rugby and the Dublin Hospitals Cup travelled to London to mark the centenary of the death of distinguished soldier, doctor, rugby player and RCSI alumnus, Major Thomas J. Crean, FRCSI (1873-1923). Professor Michael Farrell (Class of 1974) and Dr Niall Hogan (Class of 1995) were joined by Med 4 students and RCSI rugby team members Thomas Buckley and Molly Fitzgerald, who laid a wreath on behalf of RCSI.

PHARMACY SOCIETY

At the Pharmacy Society’s Brave the Shave fundraiser in April, volunteers shaved their hair to raise vital funds for Pieta House. Students were delighted to raise over €3,000, thanks to the generosity of the RCSI community, family and friends.

HURLING

RCSI’s hurling team made it to the final of the Group C division of the Fergal Maher Cup in February but were beaten by Connemara ATU. An incredible result for the team, formed just two years ago!

SURF CLUB

Last autumn, the Wild Atlantic Way played host to RCSI’s Surf Club, with 50 students surfing the waves in Bundoran, Co Donegal.

RUGBY

In 1991, the late Professor Alan Johnson established an annual sporting exchange with Professor Gilbert Bereziat, of the Faculty of Medicine at the Sorbonne in Paris, to coincide with the Six Nations Rugby Championship. The tradition continued in February 2023 when RCSI welcomed a team of Sorbonne medical students, Les Petits Cochons, for rugby matches against both alumni and student teams, from which RCSI emerged victorious!

RESEARCH STUDIES SERIOUS IMPACT

From treating sepsis to measuring social skills in babies, ten RCSI research projects demonstrate how science impacts healthcare – and society

1 TREATING SEPSIS

Sepsis, a complication caused by the body’s overwhelming and life-threatening response to an infection, can lead to tissue damage, organ failure, and death.

RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences (RCSI) spin-out company Inthelia Therapeutics focuses on non-antibiotic therapies for sepsis and was named as an awardee of the international BLUE KNIGHT™ QuickFire Challenge for NextGeneration Preparedness Solutions. Founder Professor Steve Kerrigan, RCSI School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, explains how slow diagnosis and over-dependence on antibiotics have resulted in sepsis becoming one of the top three causes of adult hospitalisations and is responsible for half of all hospital deaths globally: “Antibiotics fail in many patients with sepsis, increasing risk

of death and antimicrobial resistance. We cannot depend on new antibiotics to solve the growing threats of sepsis and antimicrobial resistance. There is an urgent need for more rapid diagnosis

and treatment with novel non-antibiotics or patient-targeted therapy in emergency departments.”

Inthelia Therapeutics is advancing an innovative biomarker-guided, host-targeted therapy towards late-stage clinical trials in early sepsis which has as a goal to have immeasurable impact on human lives especially with the rapid advancement of anti-microbial resistance.

Professor Fergal O’Brien, Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation at RCSI, congratulated Professor Kerrigan and his team. “This recognition of the work of an RCSI spin-out company on the international stage is a testament to Inthelia’s world-class research at the RCSI School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences which will potentially benefit the 49 million people impacted by sepsis annually.”

2 PANCREATIC CANCER RESEARCH

RCSI spin-out company OncoLize has closed a US$ 1.7 million seed investment round to extend their preclinical success with a local drug delivery system to treat pancreatic and lung cancer. The OncoLize technology was invented by Professor Helena Kelly at the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences at RCSI.

Injected directly into a solid tumour, the OncoLize liquid formulation thickens within seconds to form a soft gel, releasing the loaded drugs safely at higher concentrations and over a longer period than with the conventional delivery routes of chemotherapy or immunotherapy. This localised method of delivery reduces total drug load required and is expected to diminish the many side-effects associated with conventional delivery of chemotherapy and immunotherapy. The company is using the investment to expand the preclinical studies and prepare for first-in-human pancreatic tumour studies.

The OncoLize Team

The Irish Research Council (IRC) has funded a new RCSI study assessing the health and wellbeing impact of the Let it Bee biodiversity project, which trained farmers as beekeepers to raise awareness of the harmful effects of pesticides.

RCSI study lead, Dr Jolanta Burke from the Centre for Positive Health Sciences, says: “If our research findings show that the biodiversity project impacts on health and wellbeing, it will open the door to designing innovative interventions that simultaneously improve environmental sustainability and mental health. This way, we can contribute meaningfully to the government’s strategies related to mental health, wellbeing and climate change; and the United Nations’ sustainable development goals.”

Director of the Irish Research Council, Dr Louise Callinan, added: “The collaboration between researchers and policymakers aligns with the ambitions of Impact 2030: Ireland’s Research and Innovation Strategy to strengthen evidence-based policymaking and deliver enhanced outcomes for citizens and society.”

4 CANCER BREAKTHROUGHS

Researchers at Beaumont RCSI Cancer Centre have discovered key molecular changes that drive the spread of breast cancer to the brain. “Metastatic brain disease is a devastating illness that happens in up to a third of patients with advanced breast cancer,” explains Professor Leonie Young, the study’s Principal Investigator and Scientific Director of the Cancer Centre. “There are currently few treatment options when this happens, and they centre mainly on surgery and radiation treatment. The prognosis is not good for patients, and we urgently need new medicines to help them. There has been some evidence that reversible changes in RNA are present in advanced brain metastatic disease, so we wanted to explore these changes, to understand them better, on the basis that they could potentially be used to indicate how the disease was progressing and possibly represent new targets for treatments to intervene.”

The Cancer Centre, an innovative collaboration between Beaumont Hospital, RCSI and St Luke’s Radiation Oncology Network, was accredited in 2022 for the quality and standards of cancer care and research by the OECI, a European organisation who set comprehensive standards for cancer centres and networks.

“OECI accreditation is testament to the international significance of the work performed at the Cancer Centre. Our focus is on delivering the highest international standards in cancer research that will bring maximum benefit to cancer patients, and ensure that Ireland is at the forefront of excellent patient care now and in the future,” says Professor Young.

5 MANAGING ASTHMA

A new international study led by RCSI’s Professor Richard Costello and published in leading respiratory journal, The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, has revealed significant potential for digital technology to improve asthma control for patients. About one in 10 people with asthma cannot control their symptoms with inhalers, often experiencing severe attacks or needing stronger medication. It is thought that in some of these cases, patients may not be using the inhalers effectively. Novel technologies developed by Professor Costello’s Inhaler Adherence in Severe Unstable Asthma (INCA - SUn) study, led by the INCA Research Team at RCSI, deliver and monitor asthma care in a completely digital manner. The 32-week study, using a unique digital clinical support tool, developed by the RCSI team and TCD, showed how the technology helps differentiate between people with severe asthma and those with difficult-to-treat asthma, one of the challenging distinctions that respiratory physicians often need to make. The editorial accompanying the paper says that guidelines for care should be changed to reflect the findings of the study. The team are using the data to support a spin-out company, PHYXIOM.

The Let it Bee study.

Professor Richard Costello

Professor Leonie Young

6 DEVELOPING A CURE FOR LETHAL LUNG DISEASE

RCSI researcher Professor Killian Hurley has been awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant to conduct innovative research into treatments for the lethal lung condition, pulmonary fibrosis.

Professor Hurley is a Principal Investigator in RCSI’s Department of Medicine and Tissue Engineering Research Group and Consultant Respiratory Physician at Beaumont Hospital. “By developing the ‘lung-in-a-dish’ model in the lab using adult stem cells,” he says, “we can learn if medications work for individual patients and about the side-effects or toxicity of drugs before ever giving them to real-life patients. Our overall aim is to better understand how pulmonary fibrosis happens and to provide improved medications to patients, allowing them to live normal and healthy lives.”

RCSI’s Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation, Professor Fergal O’Brien, congratulated Professor Hurley on the prestigious award, as testament to the high-quality health sciences research taking place at RCSI. “The STAR-TEL project will do important work to deepen our understanding of pulmonary fibrosis and how it can be treated.”

7 CRUCIAL CLINICAL TRIALS

Professor Jarushka Naidoo, newly appointed Professor of Medical Oncology in RCSI’s Department of Medicine, brings with her world-class experience in clinical trials and translational studies in cancer and immunotherapy. Advancing clinical trials for new targeted cancer therapies is critical to improving quality of life and outcomes for patients with cancer, and collaboration among experts in cancer research is vital to ensure that every resource possible is used to make discoveries and introduce new treatments that will have lifelong impacts on population health.

Since her appointment, Professor Naidoo has led an international panel of oncology and immunotherapy experts to develop standardised definitions of the side-effects of cancer immunotherapy to assist clinicians in treating patients. Published in the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer, the paper is the first set of consensus expert definitions relating to the diagnosis and management of side-effects caused by immunotherapy, specifically immune checkpoint inhibitors.

8 TREATING HEART FAILURE

Researchers at RCSI have developed a new lab-based model of a heart and circulatory system that will help test devices to treat patients with one of the most common forms of heart failure.

Senior author on the study, Dr Aamir Hameed (Postgraduate Studies, Class of 2017), Lecturer in the Department of Anatomy and Regenerative Medicine and a Principal Investigator with the Tissue Engineering Research Group at RCSI, said: “Half of the patients presenting with heart failure have heart failure with preserved ejection fraction – and the numbers are increasing in the developed world in particular, due to the increase in the prevalence of risk factors. The condition can be difficult to treat with medicines and is causing a considerable burden to health services throughout the world.

“The development of this lab-based model is a milestone in heart failure research as it enables devices to be tested that have the potential to treat a condition that affects millions of people around the world, improving their quality of life and reducing the burden on health services.”

Professor Killian Hurley

Professor Jarushka Naidoo

9 RUGBY RESEARCH

A collaboration between RCSI and the IRFU Charitable Trust is funding two pioneering research projects, supported by the Science Foundation Ireland AMBER Centre, Leinster Schools Rugby and World Rugby.

Professor Helen French, Associate Professor and Louise Keating, Lecturer, RCSI School of Physiotherapy, are leading a research study into training load and injury in Leinster Schools Rugby, crucial to the future development of injury prevention strategies, while Professor Fergal O’Brien, Professor of Bioengineering and Regenerative Medicine at RCSI and Dr Michelle Flood, Senior Lecturer at the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences and PPI Ignite Lead at RCSI, are leading the Spinal Cord Injury Research Project. This project focuses on the development of a novel multifunctional biomaterial implant, which may have the potential to revolutionise the way that spinal cord injury is treated.

10 THE PANDEMIC AND BABIES’ SOCIAL SKILLS

The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, mass lockdowns and mask-wearing meant that babies’ interactions with people outside the home were limited and access to visual and facial cues for language development restricted.

Researchers from RCSI and Children’s Health Ireland assessed 10 parentally reported developmental outcomes for 309 ‘pandemic’ babies at 12 months of age. The babies were part of the CORAL (Impact of Coronavirus Pandemic on Allergic and Autoimmune Dysregulation in Infants Born During Lockdown) project run by Professor Jonathan Hourihane, Head of the Department of Paediatrics at RCSI. All had been born during the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic (March-May 2020) in Ireland.

These outcomes were compared a year after birth with those of 1,629 infants from the pre-pandemic BASELINE (Babies After SCOPE: Evaluating the Longitudinal Impact using Neurological and Nutritional Impact) study, which included babies born in Ireland between 2008 and 2011.

“Pandemic-associated social isolation appears to have impacted more on social communication skills than motor skills in babies born during the pandemic, compared with a historical cohort,” said Dr Susan Byrne, RCSI Department of Paediatrics and FutureNeuro, SFI Research Centre for Chronic and Rare Neurological Diseases, and lead author of the study.

Research showed that CORAL babies were more likely to be crawling at the age of 12 months than their BASELINE counterparts, which might be because they were more likely to have spent more time at home and on the ground, with siblings home from school and parents working from home, rather than out of the home in cars and strollers. However, lockdown measures may have impacted the scope of language heard and sight of unmasked faces speaking to them, while also curtailing opportunities to encounter new items of interest which might prompt pointing, and the frequency of social contacts to enable them to learn to wave ■

A LIFE’S WORK

From Borneo to Dublin to Canada: Professor Koon Teo’s journey to becoming a cardiologist, scientist and principal investigator on major clinical trials, began at RCSI

rofessor Koon Teo (Class of 1978) is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology at McMaster University, an Associate Member of the Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics, a Senior Investigator at the Population Health Research Institute and Sta Cardiologist at Hamilton Health Sciences. He earned his PhD in Medical Sciences from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada and trained in Clinical Trials at the National Institutes of Health, Washington DC, USA. He has been the principal investigator and/or lead investigator in over ten major clinical trials and was the Canadian Principal Investigator for the COURAGE trial, the results of which are impacting the practice of cardiology worldwide.

One morning, when Koon Teo was just 14, living in a village in Borneo, his mother had an antepartum haemorrhage. Koon’s father rushed her to the local hospital. She was close to death.

“ ey wanted to transfuse blood but there was no blood”, says Koon. “In those days, where we lived, we had to nd our own blood. ey took a unit from my father. I pleaded with them: ‘Take mine,’ but they said I was too young. My father had to ask our neighbours to donate blood. ere were two English nurses in the hospital – a nursing sister and a junior nurse, and I still remember their words: ‘We will take care of her,’ and they did. My mother lived to over 80.”

It was a seminal moment in Koon’s life, triggering his desire to become a doctor. But living in a remote village, with links to the medical community limited to his experience in the hospital with his mother and the rushed taxi ride to the big hospital, he had no idea how to go about it.

Irish Christian Brother Frederick Lynch was the principal at Koon Teo’s school in Borneo. “Look,” he said, “let me write to Ireland and see what information I can get for you.” In the spring of 1972, RCSI accepted Koon for the coming academic year.

“At that time, in Leeson Park in Dublin 6, there was a building owned by the Malaysian government called Malaysia House, where students could stay. I moved in there as soon as I arrived. I was not on a scholarship. My family supported me, but we had very little money. I had to keep to a strict budget to get by.

“At RCSI, everybody is from somewhere else – Americans, Norwegians, Malaysians, Nigerians, South Africans as well as the local Irish. We got on very well, I even learned to drink beer. I socialised at Malaysia House with the Malaysians and in Rice’s with the Norwegians,” laughs Koon.

“When I came to RCSI, my self-esteem was low. I was a pro cient student in Malaysia, but I didn’t have any con dence. I worked very hard and was lucky to win three gold medals. I was typical of somebody from the Far East – very quiet. People started asking, ‘Who is this guy?’ My con dence grew.”

Koon started his clinical training at the Richmond. “Cardiologist, Professor John Horgan had just returned from the US. Irish doctors like John had additional letters a er their name: BTA – Been To America. In those days, if you went to the US for training, you were more than just a regular doctor. It was very unusual then for a consultant in Ireland to even say hello to students but John invited us for drinks, for dinner. My very rst research project was with him. I found I really liked cardiology and I enjoyed the research project. A er I graduated, I worked with John for a few more years, but then I needed to make further plans to advance. e opportunities at that time for an Irish person to get a consultant post were scarce. For a non-Irish person? Don’t even think about it.

“I was planning to go to the US to train as a cardiologist, but there was a recession there. A er giving it some thought, I went to Canada instead. I started a training job at the University of Alberta at Edmonton. I wanted to do clinical training as well as research so I began a PhD and nished my clinical training so that I could do the Canadian specialty exam to become a cardiologist, as well as a PhD scientist.

“A few years later, with funding from the Alberta government I went to the National Institutes of Health, the big research institute in Washington DC, for two years, training

Professor Koon Teo

Koon Teo’s RCSI Yearbook photo.

with Dr Salim Yusuf, the Indian-born Canadian physician, cardiologist and epidemiologist. I came back to Edmonton, became an assistant professor, and a sta cardiologist.

“My PhD was in physiology. Clinical trials, epidemiology, was booming, and it suited my arm of research – nding things that improve the wellbeing of our patients, our population. I didn’t want to only be a doctor – I wanted to do more than that. A er about nine years based at the University of Alberta, I moved the family to Hamilton and began dividing my time between McMaster University where I became a full professor and Head of Cardiology at the McMaster University Medical Centre, and McMaster University.

“ at’s when we started the HOPE trial to improve outcomes in people with heart disease, a trial of about 10,000 people worldwide. At the same time, three American professors got together and came up with an idea for a clinical trial, looking at intervention angioplasty, stents and so on – did they work? – but they then realised that they could not nish the study by themselves since recruiting patients in the USA was challenging. So they asked me to join as the lead Canadian investigator. We found Canadian seed money of $14 million. e whole study, which we called COURAGE, cost $80 million and had about 3,000 participants. is study was one of my best, something I really feel good about. It sparked other studies asking the same question: does everybody really need an intervention? e reaction to the study was very interesting – some very high-powered and famous people were prepared to attack the study because the results were not what they would have liked. Interventions can be good business, and doctors feel positive about doing them.

“ e other study I am very proud of is a study on the origins of cardiovascular diseases – do they occur out of the blue or is there a genetic link? We further wanted to create a community of researchers of cardiovascular disease worldwide, a massive study. We began by recruiting more than 1,000 mothers, and their children, and we followed them for 15 years, from birth.

“We have a lot of data we’re still working on. It raises some interesting questions. For instance, why it is that some kids are obese, and others are not? We found that the children who are malnourished when born and then begin feeding, actually become obese even at two or three years old. We look at populations and we measure cholesterol levels as they grow old. We are in over 20 countries now and have recruited more than 200,000 people. We went to Canada, of course, and then to Sweden, Poland, and many other places. More importantly, we are interested in developing countries like China, India, Malaysia and countries in Africa: ‘Why is it that as we develop, there is more heart disease, more heart attacks, more strokes? Why is it so? What is happening?’ All these things are so important. e study is ongoing and papers are still coming out. We had a whole series of papers on smoking, for example, and now we’re talking about genetics. ere is enough interest and enough funding to keep growing.”

e Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) at McMaster is now one of the top research institutes in the world and Koon has been in the top 1% of

experts in the world. His latest trial (co-authored with Professor Salim Yusuf) examines the impact of health determinants at the individual (e.g. health-related behaviours) and societal level (e.g. environmental factors, health-related policy, quality of health systems) on health outcomes (e.g. death, non-communicable disease development) across a range of socio-economic and health resource settings. Additional components of this study will examine genetic factors for non-communicable diseases.

Koon and Pearly Chan, a nurse, married in 1986. ey have two daughters, Ashley and Michelle, now 32 and 31. “Pearly is retired now. Ashley, who studied economics, lives in New York. A er her primary degree, Michelle did a doctorate in counselling psychology at Trinity College and now works in Dublin.” One of his brothers is a doctor, who also attended RCSI, and now works in Galway. “My other brother also lives in Dublin. e connection to Ireland is strong.”

Koon kept in touch with Brother Lynch, who retired to Ireland. “Even when I was in Canada, I would y over to see him. When he was dying, I visited. Now every time I visit RCSI, I go to his grave in Navan. I have him to thank for my career.”

Koon maintains strong links to RCSI too, o en visiting and usually giving lectures on his clinical research when he is in town. “RCSI was small enough for the professors to know you, and for you to know them, it’s like a family. RCSI is not the building, it’s the people. I remember who the head porter was, who was on the front door. You know all these people and people know each other. RCSI gave us the grounding for being good doctors, and my mentors were excellent. John Horgan’s registrar, Marie Hart, for instance, was the role model for how I communicate with patients and people.

“I have been back almost every year. I’ll be in Dublin in August. We have our 45th-year class reunion and RCSI asked me to be one of the ambassadors for the class. When I graduated from RCSI in 1978, I had a choice, do I go back to Malaysia and set up a family practice and be frustrated when there was so much to do? Of course, my parents would have liked me to go back. With encouragement from John and from others, I had the con dence to do more. My mother was disappointed, but she understood. I’m still working. I’m coming up to 75, but I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t work. I come to the o ce every day, even now. So I must have chosen the right path.” ■

“EPIDEMIOLOGY WAS BOOMING, AND IT SUITED MY ARM OF RESEARCH – FINDING THINGS THAT IMPROVE THE WELLBEING OF OUR PATIENTS, OUR POPULATION.”

Professor Koon Teo gives a lecture at his alma mater.

HEALING HANDS

One of the greatest Irish surgeons, anatomist Abraham Colles (1773-1843) is remembered by a fracture, a fascia, a law and a ligament.

RCSI Historian Ronan Kelly marks the 250th anniversary of his birth

Abraham Colles grew up in Kilkenny, where his father, who died when Colles was a boy, ran a successful marble works. All his life, Colles remained close to his mother: his letters to her survive in RCSI’s Heritage Collections (‘As to your question, What am I to do for the itch?’ he once wrote to her, ‘the practice here which seems to be most pleasant to the generality of patients is ... to scratch’). Family lore has it that Colles’ interest in surgery began early: he is supposed to have found an anatomy textbook oating in the River Nore a er a local doctor’s house ooded. Seeing the boy entranced, the doctor told him to keep the book.

Five days a er Colles enrolled at RCSI, he also registered in Trinity College – but in Arts, not Medicine. With his brother, William, he was a regular debater at Trinity’s Historical Society – aka ‘the Hist’ – membership of which was, for many, the whole point of a Trinity education. Frustratingly, as only surnames were recorded, it is not known which Colles brother was the more active in the Society.

Colles’ time at RCSI is better recorded, not least as his admission cards to lectures and dissections also survive. At this time, RCSI’s modest home was a house on Mercer Street; amongst Colles’ professors was William Hartigan, famous for carrying a pair of kittens around with him in the

Abraham Colles (23 July 1773 – 16 November 1863) had a strong connection with RCSI, being an alumnus, professor and President.

deep pockets of his greatcoat (pet therapy avant la lettre?). With another professor, William Lawless – soon to ee the country for his lawless membership of the United Irishmen, for which he was expelled from RCSI, only to be posthumously reinstated 198 years later – Hartigan co-authored a Syllabus of Lectures in Anatomy and Physiology (1796). is was the exact terrain Colles would go on to revolutionise.

Also surviving is Colles’ Indenture Certi cate, dated 15 September 1790. Much of the small print is predictable (‘the said Apprentice his said Master faithfully shall serve, his Secrets keep, & his lawful Commandments everywhere gladly do’); but other, more niche prohibitions suggest the life an average apprentice might prefer (‘He shall not commit Fornication, or contract Matrimony ... He shall not play at Cards, or Dice-Tables or any other unlawful games ... He shall not haunt or use Taverns, Ale-Houses, Play-Houses, nor absent himself from his said Master’s Service, Day nor Night unlawfully’). It is hardly surprising that apprentices might like to blow o some steam: theirs was a generally arduous (and expensive) existence – but Colles fared better than most. His Master was Philip Woodro e (PRCSI 1788), under whose guidance Colles had little di culty obtaining his Licence on 24 September 1795. He had already collected his BA from Trinity in April.

Next, Colles headed for Edinburgh – then the capital of medicine in the English-speaking world. is was a well-worn route for Irish students: of the 800 graduates there in the last quarter of the 18th century, 237 were Irish, 217 English, 179 Scottish and 167 ‘colonists and foreigners’. is Hibernian brain-drain – or at least, fee-drain – was not lost on Colles; he noted that Irish students were collectively shelling out £20,000 per annum in Scotland. In time, he would do much to stanch this ow. Meanwhile, as his landlady feared he’d read himself into a co n, he earned his doctorate. Both his thesis, entitled ‘De Venaesectione’ (‘On Bloodletting’), and his viva voce defence of it were in Latin. Little is known of the six months Colles then spent in London, except that he made the acquaintance of Astley Cooper (1768–1841), then on the cusp of becoming Britain’s most celebrated anatomist. Colles and Cooper corresponded frequently for the rest of their lives, and in 1820 Cooper was made an Honorary Member (the precursor to Fellow) of RCSI.

Returning to Dublin, Woodro e did Colles another good turn: he died, and Colles took over at Dr Steevens’ Hospital. erea er, he rocketed through the ranks at RCSI, from Membership (1799) to President (1802), when he was just twenty-nine years old. From 1804 he held both the Chairs of Anatomy

and Physiology (until 1827) and Surgery (until 1836). Students ocked to him, and the College – in its salubrious new home on St Stephen’s Green from 1810 – ourished.

One of the reasons he was so popular was because he made his anatomy teaching memorable and understandable in a way that was entirely new. Before this, anatomical teaching had not changed much since the time of Vesalius (1514–1564). e method was systemic – that is, week by week students learned about the entire muscular, vascular or nervous systems, all neatly separated. Colles found this fundamentally misconceived: one might as well, he said, take apart a watch and describe each cog and spring in detail, but never say a word about how they work together. In a short volume entitled A Treatise on Surgical Anatomy (1811), Colles advocated instead a regional approach – that is, the study of how the various systems function relative to one another in any given part of the body. In time, regional, as opposed to systemic, anatomy became the new orthodoxy. Along the way, however, Colles’ pioneering role was o en

ONE OF THE REASONS HE WAS SO POPULAR WAS BECAUSE HE MADE HIS ANATOMY TEACHING MEMORABLE AND UNDERSTANDABLE.

Colles as a youth.

The Colles fracture is studied by medical students around the world to this day.

forgotten. In some respects, he was a victim of his own success: so completely had he transformed his subject, the world came to believe it was always ever thus. Colles’ other great claim to fame is his eponymous fracture, caused by a fall on an outstretched hand and resulting in a characteristic ‘dinner-fork’ deformity. In 1814, Colles published an article on the subject in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, entitled ‘On the fracture of the carpal extremity of the radius’. is classic description might have been lost to posterity had it not been for Trinity College’s rst Professor of Surgery, Robert William Smith (1807–73), who drew attention to it in 1847: ‘It is certainly very extraordinary that ... not a single British or foreign author who has written since has made the slightest reference to Mr Colles’ name in connection with the subject, even when almost quoting his words.’ Ever since, the names of Colles and Smith have been, as it were, handed down together: a ‘reversed’ Colles fracture – the result of force applied to the back of the wrist – is known as Smith’s fracture.

In 1839, Colles declined a baronetcy, saying such distinctions held ‘no attraction’ for him. For some time he had been su ering from gout and bronchitis, and in 1841 he made a tour of Switzerland for his health. He improved temporarily, but in October 1842 he felt the end was approaching; accordingly, he wrote the following letter to his friend (and successor as Chair of Anatomy and Physiology), Professor Robert Harrison:

My Dear Robert,

I think it may be of some bene t, not only to my own family, but to society at large, to ascertain by examination the exact seat and nature of my last disease. I am sure you will grant my request, that you will see this be carefully and early done. e parts to which I would direct particular attention are the heart and lungs, a small hernia immediately above the umbilicus, and the swelling in the right hypochondrium. From the similarity of the Rev. P. Roe’s case with mine, I suppose there is some connection between the swelling of the hypochondrium and the diseased state of the heart.

Yours truly, dear Robert,

A. Colles

Colles died a year later, on 1 December 1843, at home in Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire). When the news reached the city, all medical schools closed immediately as a mark of respect. On the day of the funeral, the north and west sides of St Stephen’s Green were impassable due to the great number of mourners and carriages. e Fellows of RCPI walked from their President’s

house in Merrion Square, joined by members of the Apothecaries Company; members of the judiciary walked too, headed by the Master of the Rolls. As the hearse passed number 123 St Stephen’s Green, the doors opened and President James O’Beirne (1787–1862) processed out ahead of the Members and the Licentiates; remaining on foot, they followed the cortège to Mount Jerome Cemetery. Some days earlier, Robert Harrison, Henry Marsh and William Stokes were in attendance as Robert Smith ful lled Colles’ last request. ere was evidence of chronic bronchitis, a brotic le lung, and a dilated and fatty heart with no indication of valvular disease. William Stokes called this ‘the last great act of Mr. Colles’s medical career’. ■

Robert William Smith Colles’ Indenture Certificate, September 15 1790. Colles’ surgical licence, 1795.

A Treatise on Surgical Anatomy by Colles, 1811.

The Colles fracture.

CLASS CALL

2010s

■ MS AMANDA O’HALLORAN (MEDICINE, 2019) Ms O’Halloran has recently completed her Masters in Surgery from the University of Galway. She has achieved a Certi cate in Management for Healthcare Professionals and also accomplished an Advanced Certi cate in Clinical Education. Ms O’Halloran has recently been appointed to the Specialist Training Programme in Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery here in Ireland. We would like to congratulate her on her recent engagement!

■ MS ALEXANDRA TROY (PHYSICIAN ASSOCIATE, 2018) Alexandra Troy is one of the rst Irish-trained Physician Associate (PA) graduates to be employed in Ireland. She was part of the pioneering rst cohort of the RCSI MSc Physician Associate Studies Programme.

Alexandra has been working in colorectal and general surgery for the last ve years and was the rst Irish-trained PA to be featured in Hospital Professional News as one of the Top 100 Annual Healthcare Professionals in December 2021. She examines PA students for OSCEs and long case exams and is a clinical rotation preceptor. She has also been involved in the RCSI Student Innovation Programme and was nominated for the 2023 Inspiring Educator Award.

Alexandra is the current President of the Irish Society of Physician Associate (ISPA), and volunteers on the ISPA advocacy, communications, research and conference committees, working for greater recognition and regulation for the physician associate profession in Ireland.

■ DR ANDREW ZAYAS (MEDICINE, 2018) Dr Andrew Zayas is currently training in general practice in Devon, UK. A er graduation, Dr Zayas completed his internship at St Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin, before moving to the USA to become certi ed in functional medicine. He then returned to Gibraltar and worked as a locum in his local hospital before deciding to pursue a career in general practice. In April he ran the London Marathon to raise funds for WWF, inspired by his time as a member of the RCSI EnviroSoc and a trip he took to Sumatra in 2016 a er his 3rd Year exams.

■ PROFESSOR MARY CANNON (SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES, 2016) Earlier this year, Professor Mary Cannon, Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology and Youth Mental Health in the Department of Psychiatry at RCSI, was recognised for her leadership in this area in the Irish Examiner’s list: ‘100 Women of 2023’.

■ DR MARK ABEL (MEDICINE, 2015) Following graduation, Dr Abel completed an internal medicine residency at the University of Massachusetts/ Baystate in Spring eld, Massachusetts, followed by a combined fellowship in infectious disease and preventive medicine at Dartmouth Health in Lebanon, New Hampshire. He also completed a Masters in Public Health at Dartmouth College. He is currently working as a clinical infectious disease specialist at Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Maine, with a special interest in healthcare epidemiology. Dr Abel and his wife Tamar recently travelled to Ireland for their second wedding anniversary and enjoyed a visit to RCSI.

■ MS USHA DANIEL (SCHOOL OF NURSING AND MIDWIFERY, 2010), A er completing the Advanced Midwife Practitioner (AMP) course at RCSI in 2013, Usha worked in the National Maternity Hospital as a registered AMP –Diabetes in Pregnancy, which gave her the opportunity to make collaborative and independent clinical decisions with women and their families, and support pregnant women with diabetes to successfully manage their condition and minimise the risk of developing complications during pregnancy.

2000s

■ DR FAIZA SHAHBAZ (GSM, 2009) Dr Faiza Shahbaz is a certi ed family physician and associate lead of the Greater Peterborough family health team, and an attending physician at long-term care homes in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. She provides comprehensive in-o ce care for people of all ages, from newborn to older adults. Having completed her BST in Ireland, she obtained her Master of Science with honours in Healthcare Ethics and Law, from RCSI in 2009. She now lives in Canada with her husband, who is a pulmonologist, and three daughters who were all born in Ireland. According to Dr Shahbaz, “Dublin will always be home for me and my family!”

At RCSI, we love to hear news about your career achievements and information about you and your life a er University. Find out what some of your classmates have been doing

Ms Amanda O’Halloran

Ms Alexandra Troy

Dr Mark Abel

Professor Mary Cannon

Dr Faiza Shahbaz with her daughter Fatima

Dr Andrew Zayas

1980s

■ DR JOHN WALLACE (MEDICINE, 1988) Following his graduation from RCSI, Dr John Wallace went on to study evidence-based medicine at Oxford. A er an MSc at Wadham College, he completed a doctorate with the University of Oxford that focused on translating the latest research evidence more quickly from researchers to doctors and nurses in clinical practice. At Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, he has been researching the ways in which science in uenced medical education and clinical practice in Ireland during the 19th century.

■ DR RUFARO CELESTINE (MEDICINE, 1987) In 2019, Dr Celestine completed her tenure as the Medical Chief of Sta , Scarborough General Hospital, Tobago. She is the Medical Director of GBH Medical – a new health and wellness facility in Tobago. As a former member of Trinidad and Tobago’s national veterans squash team, Dr Celestine is looking forward to the addition of a squash court and gym to the complex. e refurbishment of the room suites will be completed over the next few months. Discounts for RCSI alumni will be o ered!

RCSI BAHRAIN NEWS

■ DR DANYA ALASEERI (CLASS OF 2022) Congratulations to Dr Danya Alaseeri, winner of the annual Intern Award for 2023. Dr Alaseeri is currently completing her internship at King Hamad University Hospital.

■ DR SAMAHER ALBINALI (CLASS OF 2022) In January, Dr Samaher Albinali was announced as the winner of the Dr H H Stewart Medical Scholarship in Clinical Radiology. Dr Albinali is currently a Foundation Year 1 doctor at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust in the UK.

■ DR IBRAHIM ELSHARKAWI (CLASS OF 2014) In 2022, Dr Ibrahim Elsharkawi received the Medical Biochemical Genetics Subspecialty Fellowship Award from the American College of Medical Geneticists (ACMG) Foundation for Genetic and Genomic Medicine. Last year, Dr Elsharkawi completed a one-year fellowship in mitochondrial medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia before moving to Boston for a fellowship in medical biochemical genetics at Harvard.

■ DR FARES ALFARES (CLASS OF 2013) Dr Fares AlFares is currently a Fellow at Dalhousie University, working in paediatric haematology & oncology at the IWK Children’s Hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. In 2022 he was recognised by the Canadian Federation of Medical Students as a ‘Culture Changer’, for positively impacting the experience of medical students by prioritising learner safety.

■ CAPTAIN DR FARES UDDIN (CLASS OF 2013) A er graduation, Dr Uddin completed an internship at King Hamad University Hospital, a er which he was recruited by the Royal Guards and nominated to attend the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Dr Fares concluded his orthopaedic surgical training in December 2020 with distinction. He held a pivotal role in COVID-19 management in Bahrain, working closely with senior government leadership, health institutions and the National COVID-19 task force, and was awarded the Prince Salman bin Hamad Medal for Medical Merit for his e orts.

■ DR AHMED ALJAMRI (CLASS OF 2011) In 2022, Dr Ahmed Saeed Aljamri was presented with the Prince Salman bin Hamad Medal for Medical Merit.

■ MSC NURSING SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS Last summer, Mr Jawad Saleh (Class of 2013), Mr Mahmood Aljazeeri (Class of 2014), Ms Dana Alabbadi

■ DR PATRICK TREACY (MEDICINE, 1985) In April 2023, Dr Treacy received the Tia Maria Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding vision, dedication and commitment to research, philanthropy and improving standards in aesthetic medicine.

(Class of 2019) and Ms Sara Otaifa (Class of 2017) were awarded RCSI Bahrain MSc Nursing Scholarships.

■ ALUMNI IN FRANCE: FRENCH RESIDENCY Dr Muneera Rabeea (Class of 2015), Dr Abubaker Jadalla (Class of 2018) and Dr Hamad Adel Hamad (Class of 2019) were presented with B2 French language diplomas from His Excellency Mr Jerome Cauchard, French Ambassador to the Kingdom of Bahrain. is recognition will allow the graduates to start their specialised residency training in France over the coming four to six years.

■ RCSI BAHRAIN 2022 INSPIRING EXCELLENCE AWARD WINNERS

Dr Mona Albanna (Class of 2012) and Ms Myrna Traboulssi (Class of 2018, M.Sc Nursing) were recipients of the 2022 Inspiring Excellence Awards. Launched in 2018, the initiative aims to inspire students, alumni, and visitors to RCSI Bahrain, by showcasing the achievements of graduates in a gallery of portraits on the campus. ■

Dr Ahmed Aljamri

Captain Dr Fares Uddin

Dr Ibrahim Elsharkawi Dr Danya Alaseeri

Dr Samaher Albinali

Dr John Wallace Dr Rufaro Celestine

Dr Mona Albanna

Ms Myrna Traboulssi

Dr Patrick Treacy

A LASTING IMPACT

Two alumni who met at RCSI are making a di erence in a special way

M

y enduring impression of RCSI is that of an institution that cares deeply about people. I arrived at RCSI in 1954, aged 16 – one of 100 students in the class, of whom 25 were women, which was amazing in those days. It was a really great experience. From attending classes and playing hockey, to meeting my husband Alf, it was a thoroughly enjoyable time of my life. Even then, I recognised how special RCSI was because at its heart was an ethos of caring for patients. We were taught and encouraged to treat patients with the utmost respect and kindness. Simple things like ensuring we called the person by name rather than referring to them as ‘the patient’ stayed with me throughout my life and remains one of my outstanding memories.

is sense of compassion applied also to how we as students were treated. On the day that Alf and I quali ed, he phoned home to share his news.

he did. When he arrived back, Professor Rae had arranged for a member of Council to formally present Alf for a personal Conferring. I was there alongside Alf, and it was a really moving moment – something that was in equal measures kind and remarkable. For us, that thoughtful gesture and act of kindness during a time of great upset, re ected and encapsulated what RCSI is all about.

Almost everything in life has a price. In fact, the price of my rst date with Alf, where he invited me to dine on pancakes for Shrove Tuesday, was that I was to darn his socks. He still maintains that I never did darn those socks... However, an education at RCSI was and remains priceless. We feel incredibly grateful to have attended RCSI and we are so proud to see the College expand and ourish.

at is why Alf and I have decided to leave a legacy to RCSI so that we can in our own small way support the next generation of students to explore and prosper from the breadth of experiences, support and care that the College provides.”

Dr Sandie Tansey, Class of 1960

Sadly, his father had to tell him that his mother did not have long to live. I remember the next day, Alf called to Professor Rae to tell him that he’d be returning home and would miss our Conferring. Professor Rae didn’t say much at all but asked Alf to call back later in the a ernoon, which is what

If you would like further information on legacy giving please call Aíne Gibbons, Director of Development on +353 (1) 402 5189, or email ainegibbons@rcsi.ie

Dr Michael (Alf) Tansey and Dr Alexandra (Sandie) Tansey, Class of 1960

“AN EDUCATION AT RCSI WAS AND REMAINS PRICELESS ...”

CELEBRATING OCCASIONS AT RCSI

ALUMNI GATHERING

After a long hiatus on account of the pandemic, the Alumni Team were delighted to welcome more than 500 RCSI alumni back to St Stephen’s Green for the annual Alumni Gathering. Invitations were extended to all graduates who had been due to celebrate their reunions in 2020, 2021 as well as 2022, which resulted in a record number of alumni at the celebratory event and marked the largest gathering of alumni in the University’s history.

Niamh Johnston and Mr Sean Johnston (Class of 1989)

Dr Pamela Mangal (Class of 1971), Professor Aubrey Morrison (Class of 1970) and Dr Patrick Troy (Class of 1986)

Noel Greene and Dr Mary Behan (Class of 1996)

Dr Tasneem Al Hassan and Dr Nurul Aminudin (Class of 2002)

Parampal Gill and Dr Jasbir Gill (Class of 1972)

Sarah Cheriyan, Dr Danny Cheriyan (Class of 2005), Dr Stephen Farrell (Class of 2005), Dr Kate Ní Argáin (Class of 2007), Dr Mark Howard (Class of 2005) and Caroline MacNamara

Brian Nolan, Dr Sarah O’Malley (Class of 1992), Kim Teo, Dr Boon Teo (Class of 1992), Dr Maura O’Donovan (Class of 1992) and Rory Flynn

Dr Seema Dahabra (Class of 1987), Loshini Moodley, Dr Terrence Lyons (Class of 1987) and Dr Suseelan Moodley (Class of 1987)

Professor Kieran Murphy (Class of 1986) and Dr Rulan Parekh (Class of 1991)

Dr Iroshini Chua and Dr Kevin Chua (Class of 2001)

Dr Perry Mayer (Class of 1990) and Professor Karen Choong (Class of 1991) with Zoli and Li-Mei Mayer

Dr Jinesa Moodley (Class of 2017) and Lokesh Podipereddy

Datin Mei Ling Geh and Dato Dr Godfrey Geh Sim Wah (Class of 1965)

Ms Cróna Gallagher (Class of 1996) and Jim Clery

Dr Oyebolanle Diya, Dr Astrid Tschudi-Fjeldberg, Dr Sasha Hennessy, Dr Kate Ní Argáin and Dr Hana Maka (Class of 2007)

CELEBRATING OCCASIONS AT RCSI

ALUMNI AWARDS CEREMONY AND CELEBRATION

College Hall was the venue for a joyous celebration of our RCSI Alumni Awardees, who had received their accolades in absentia in 2020, 2021 and 2022. All Awardees were invited to RCSI to receive their awards in person, alongside the announcement of the recipient of the new award category – the Inspiring Educator Award, which was presented to Professor Michael Farrell (Class of 1974).

PROFESSOR CAROLINE DE COSTA PANEL DISCUSSION

In June 2022, the College hosted ‘An Evening of Lively Conversation and Reminiscence’ with Professor Caroline de Costa and Dr Denise Curtin (Class of 1973) and Dr Karen Flood (Class of 2001), to celebrate the launch of Professor Costa’s memoir, The Women’s Doc Professor Caroline de Costa

Professor Arnold Hill, Head of the School of Medicine, Aíne Gibbons, Director of Development and Alumni Relations, Professor Gerry McElvaney, Dr Ben LaBrot (Medicine, 2006), Professor Michael Farrell (Medicine, 1974) and Professor Cathal Kelly, Vice Chancellor and CEO

Professor Tracy Robson, Head of the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, Dr Ben Ryan (Pharmacy, 2010), Aíne Gibbons, Director of Development and Alumni Relations, Professor Cathal Kelly, RCSI Vice Chancellor and CEO and Deirdre Healy (Pharmacy, 2006)

Jennifer Thornton-Jones (Physiotherapy, 2013), Professor Suzanne McDonough, Head of the School of Physiotherapy, Stephen O’Rourke (Physiotherapy, 2014) and Aisling Brennan (Physiotherapy, 2006)

Sandra Farrell and Professor Michael Farrell (Medicine, 1974)

Dr Subashnie Devkaran (GSM, 2007), Sara McDonnell, Executive Director, Graduate School of Healthcare Management and Dr Sorca O’Brien (GSM, 2021)

Gwen O’Regan (Nursing and Midwifery, 2011), Professor Tom O’Connor, Deputy Head of the School of Nursing and Midwifery and Dr Claire Lewis (Nursing and Midwifery, 2009)

Professor Darran O’Connor, Head of the School of Postgraduate Studies, Professor Niamh Nic Daeid (Postgraduate Studies, 1993), Professor Eva Bunk (Postgraduate Studies, 2010) and Professor Sanjay Chotirmall (Postgraduate Studies, 2012)

Celebrating Occasions at RCSI

CLASS OF 2020 AND 2021 SCHOOL OF MEDICINE REUNION DINNER

Graduates from the Classes of 2020 and 2021 from the School of Medicine were welcomed back to 123 St Stephen’s Green for a reception and long-awaited reunion dinner in March 2023.

CLASS OF 2020 AND 2021 SCHOOLS OF PHARMACY AND BIOMOLECULAR SCIENCE, PHYSIOTHERAPY, AND POSTGRADUATE STUDIES REUNION DINNER

In July 2022, the Alumni Team welcomed back graduates from the Classes of 2020 and 2021 from the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, the School of Physiotherapy and the School of Postgraduate Studies, for a reception and reunion dinner at 123 St Stephen’s Green.

Dr Celine Sooknarine (Medicine, 2021) and Armaan Handa (Medicine, 2023)

Dr Clare Ragobar (Medicine, 2020), Dr Celine Sooknarine (Medicine, 2021), Dr Karishma Singh and Dr Emma Pounder (Medicine, 2021) School of Medicine, Class of 2021

Dr Katie Nolan, Dr Laura Staunton and Dr Suzanne Murphy (Medicine, 2020)

Dr Ian Brennan (Medicine, 2020) and Isabelle Nathan Daragh O’Donoghue, Róisín Healy and Rebecca Feeney (Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, 2021)

Emma Doran, Laura O’Connor, Aoibheann Lynch and Doireann O’Keeffe (Physiotherapy, Class of 2020) School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, Class of 2020

School of Physiotherapy, Class of 2020

Dr Matthew Patel and Dr Susannah Ryan (Medicine, 2021)

Dr Casserene Yeow and Dr Safari Aketch (Medicine, 2020) School of Medicine, Class of 2020

Dr Liam Mulcahy, Dr Darren Rattigan and Dr Dónal Roche (Medicine, 2020)

CELEBRATING OCCASIONS AT RCSI BAHRAIN

TENTH ANNIVERSARY REUNION & 2022 INSPIRING EXCELLENCE PORTRAIT UNVEILING CEREMONY

In November RCSI Bahrain Careers & Alumni Office hosted a reunion event to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Class of 2012 graduates, and the announcement of the winners of the 2022 Inspiring Excellence Awards – Dr Mona Albanna (School of Medicine, Class of 2012) and Ms Myrna Traboulssi (MSc Nursing, Class of 2018).

CLASS OF 2020 & 2021 REUNION EVENT

Under the patronage of Professor Sameer Otoom, President of RCSI Bahrain, over 200 alumni from the Classes of 2020 and 2021 from all three schools gathered in celebration of their long overdue celebrations at the Ritz Carlton in Bahrain. The event was attended by Professor Laura Viani, RCSI President, Professor Cathal Kelly, RCSI Vice Chancellor and CEO, Professor Alfred Nicholson, RCSI Bahrain Vice President for Academic Affairs and Head of School of Medicine, and Professor David Misselbrook, former RCSI Bahrain Associate Professor in Family Medicine and Chair of the Research Ethics Committee.

ALUMNI RECEPTION IN DUBAI, UAE

In January 2023, RCSI graduates based across the UAE and GCC were invited to an Alumni Reception in Dubai. The event was also attended by Professor Alfred Nicholson, RCSI Bahrain Vice President for Academic Affairs and Head of School of Medicine, Mr Stephen Harrison-Mirfield, RCSI Bahrain Managing Director and Dr Sabrina Berdouk (Class of 2013), recipient of the 2019 Inspiring Excellence Award.

UK REUNION EVENT

More than 90 graduates of RCSI Bahrain gathered for a reunion event at the Royal Society of Medicine in London. Also in attendance at the event were Professor Sameer Otoom, President of RCSI Bahrain, Mr Stephen Harrison-Mirfield, RCSI Bahrain Managing Director, Professor Alfred Nicholson, RCSI Bahrain Vice President for Academic Affairs and Head of School of Medicine, Professor David Misselbrook, former RCSI Bahrain Associate Professor in Family Medicine and Chair of the Research Ethics Committee, and Ms Aíne Gibbons, RCSI Director of Development and Alumni Relations. ■

T H A N K Y O U

Congratulations to our alumni who celebrated class reunions in 2022. Together, 13 reunion classes donated €115,000 to support student programmes at RCSI.

TO DATE, YOUR GENEROSITY HAS MEANT...

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Scholarships have been awarded to students, enabling them to fulfil their dream of becoming successful healthcare practitioners.

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S t u d e n t s r e c e i v e d f i n a n c i a l a s s i s t a n c e t h r o u g h t h e S t u d e n t H a r d s h i p F u n d a l l o w i n g t h e m t o c o n t i n u e w i t h t h e i r s t u d i e s .

1 7 8

Students received Clinical Elective grants, affording them the opportunity to gain vital experience in healthcare settings and become patient focused doctors.

1 1 3

S t u d e n t s h a v e t a k e n p a r t i n t h e R e s e a r c h S u m m e r S c h o o l g a i n i n g i n v a l u a b l e e x p e r i e n c e i n r e s e a r c h t e c h n i q u e s

4 1 7

STUDENTS HAD UNFORGETTABLE EXPERIENCES

THANKS TO ALUMNI SUPPORT

L a s t y e a r , o v e r 3 6 6 a l u m n i v o l u n t e e r e d a s s t u d e n t m e n t o r s , r e u n i o n a m b a s s a d o r s , s t u d e n t p l a c e m e n t p r o v i d e r s a n d c o n t e n t c r e a t o r s o f a l u m n i s t o r i e s , g i v i n g o v e r 7 2 5 h o u r s o f t h e i r t i m e . T h a n k y o u f o r y o u r s u p p o r t !

I f y o u w o u l d l i k e t o s u p p o r t R C S I s t u d e n t s , y o u c a n d o s o b y :

V i s i t i n g r c s i . c o m / s u p p o r t - u s