2024 RCSI Alumni Magazine

A L U M N I M A G A Z I N E 2024

RCSI GO FORTH AND FLOURISH

RCSI 14-16 August 2025

SAVE THE DATE

Registration will open online in early 2025.

Celebrating the classes of 1960, 1965, 1970, 1975, 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015 & 2020

WELCOME

o Forth and Flourish, the line on our magazine cover, illustrated so beautifully by John Devolle, was inspired by the theme that runs throughout this edition of our annual RCSI Alumni Magazine; how our alumni worldwide are leading fulfilling lives that have a positive and lasting impact on the health and wellbeing of those around them.

Our theme was initially sparked by the dynamism, creativity and illumination of the stained glass artwork, Floreat, which was gifted to RCSI by the Association of Medical and Dental Graduates. The title Floreat, is taken from the Association’s founding motto, “Floreat Sodalitas Ruat Res” and means to flourish, to bloom; this is what prompted us to explore the concept of what it means for our community to “flourish”.

Often described as a state of health, growth, success and abundance, human flourishing serves everyone’s interest.

These descriptors closely align with RCSI’s strategic mission of innovating for a healthier future by laying sustainable foundations to develop and educate our students so that they may directly contribute to human and societal health.

Parallels can also be found in RCSI’s commitment to the third UN Sustainable Development Goal that targets good health and wellbeing, for which RCSI has been ranked as Aíne Gibbons the world’s leading university in the 2023 Times Higher Education impact rankings.

Positive individuals tend to have strong social connections, experience emotional benefits from doing good, and make life choices that increase their chances of reaching their full potential. We are acutely aware that so many within the RCSI community pursue and share these characteristics. And so, as the pages of this edition of the magazine began to unfurl in our minds, we were excited to share the many stories of personal growth that alumni presented to us.

The energy of our campus community is captured wonderfully in Caught on Campus (page 29), giving our readers a snapshot into the lives and activities of our current students outside of their academic studies. Meanwhile, in All Possible Scenarios (page 10), we venture to RCSI’s SIM Centre, uncovering how teaching and learning are rapidly evolving with the help of innovation, technology and creativity. The collaboration of the multidisciplinary simulation team, who combine technology with theatre to deliver outstanding teaching, showcases RCSI’s commitment to learning excellence.

A commitment of a different kind is evidenced in the expansion and growth of our student societies over the last decade. Affirming the goal of building an ecosystem where everyone can thrive, our alumni recount their experiences and describe this culture of collaboration and collegiality in Strength in Numbers (page 32).

In Officially Off Duty (page 4), we discover alumni who attribute their physical and mental wellbeing to pastimes that absorb them outside of the demands of their work as doctors and surgeons. Another prescription for happiness is human endeavour. We know that alumnus Dr Vincent Coyle’s (Medicine, 1962) championing of RCSI’s involvement in the Boston Marathon has become an important tradition, for students, alumni, faculty and staff. Many alumni share their tales of how the experience of competing in the Marathon enriched their lives in In The Long Run (page 36).

Human flourishing, the state of optimal functioning and wellbeing across all aspects of an individual’s life, is determined by intrinsic good health. In The Brains Behind It (page 16), we talk to alumni who defend the brain against physical and psychological onslaughts, and discover how their research, treatments and thinking leads to individuals living well.

Looking to the future, the foundations are being laid for RCSI to continue to strive to improve societal health. In this regard, the opening of our new building at 118 St Stephen’s Green next year will holistically benefit students, staff and the community that surrounds RCSI, as we intentionally connect with the public more through events, talks and other initiatives via the new MyHealth Gallery (working title). Subtly woven into the building’s design are outdoor amenity spaces – a courtyard garden on the north side and a rooftop terrace overlooking the Green – appreciating the impact of nature on our general wellbeing.

Flourishing communities are core to the mission of RCSI. We encourage our alumni to remain connected with us through reading our weekly eNews, attending events or indeed signing up to access the new RCSI Alumni Portal (www.rcsi.com/portal). We are proud to share the achievements of alumni across the university and our graduates all over the world, and we are grateful to our alumni who support RCSI philanthropically with steadfast loyalty. “Floreat Sodalitas Ruat Res” means to flourish, to bloom, and when used at the beginning of a sentence, it means ‘Long Live’, like a toast!

AÍNE GIBBONS DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT AND ALUMNI RELATIONS ON OUR COVER Illustrator John Devolle chose a view of RCSI at 123 St Stephen's Green from the park to highlight its important place in Dublin life, and reflected the scholarship, pastimes and passions of flourishing RCSI alumni all over the world.

RCSI

A L U M N I M A G A Z I N E 2024

G

A FLOURISHING COMMUNITY

GO FORTH AND FLOURISH

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CONTENTS

24 DOING THE ROUNDS

10 ALL POSSIBLE SCENARIOS

IN THIS ISSUE 04 Officially Off Duty

Alumni and their prescriptions for happiness

10 All Possible Scenarios

RCSI SIM combines tech and theatre to deliver outstanding teaching

16 The Brains Behind It

Against physical and psychological impacts on the brain, there’s a team of defenders to protect it

22 With a Flourish

A spectacular stained glass piece gifted to RCSI is at the heart of York Street

A L U M N I M A G A Z I N E 2024

RCSI GO FORTH AND FLOURISH

ON OUR COVER

With the theme of flourishing at the heart of RCSI's mission and purpose, artist John Devolle combines creativity and originality in his depiction of 123 St Stephen's Green.

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44 STORIES AND BACKSTORIES

29 CAUGHT ON CAMPUS

24 Doing the Rounds

44 Stories and Backstories

News, notices, appointments

The process of penning the fascinating history of RCSI

29 Caught on Campus

47 Class Call

Living their best life: students get social

32 Strength in Numbers

Alumni check in from all over the world

A culture of collaboration and collegiality has led to more student societies

36 In the Long Run

The Boston Marathon tradition at RCSI

40 Research Studies

RCSI research in the headlines

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 Ailbhe Mac Eoin, Lead Editor, at RCSI, 123 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2; telephone: +353 (0) 1 402 2235; email: ailbhemaceoin@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.com/portal. 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, Jane Butler, Paula Curtin, Ailbhe Mac Eoin and Caoimhe Ní Néill.

49 Event Galleries

Celebrating occasions at RCSI

54 A Life’s Work

Alumna Dr Yvonne Curran (Medicine, 1987) on her career journey and her memories of RCSI

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.

We specialise in connecting Doctors, Nurses and Allied Health Professionals with rewarding career opportunities across Ireland. We are renowned for our recruitment expertise. Our dedicated recruiters have established strong working relationships with our clients nationwide, and our reputation for supporting healthcare professionals, ensures we are the first choice when seeking a new career in Ireland.

Scan to book a consultation with one of our recruitment experts, view latest jobs & gain valuable career advice & tips www.frsrecruitment.com/RCSIPartnership

ALUMNI PASTIMES

OFFICIALLY OFF DUTY

PRESCRIPTIONS FOR HAPPINESS

Does having a hobby, a pastime or a passion outside of work make you a better doctor?

These six alumni think so...

DR HAZEM AL RAWAS | RCSI Bahrain, Medicine, 2012 Director, Alkem Health & Wellness, Bahrain

Dr Hazem Al Rawas plays at a festival. RIGHT Dr Al Rawas in surgery.

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“I was born in Damascus in Syria, where my passion for music began to develop at the age of 12, nurtured by my family’s encouragement and the support of a musical schoolfriend. Initially drawn to the oud, an Arabian pear-shaped stringed lute, it was too big for my little body, and my musical journey started taking shape through learning the guitar. I began with music classes, then individual lessons.

“I now play several instruments, including the ukulele and the handpan, which has a really beautiful sound and is widely used in music therapy.

I’m currently delving into piano as well. My guitar repertoire encompasses therapeutic, Spanish, and Arabic music, each offering a unique avenue for expression and connection.

“To excel as a musician, dedication and consistency are paramount and regular practice is the cornerstone of developing musical talent. I carve out time during my off-duty hours to practice and occasionally perform, ensuring a balance between my medical responsibilities and musical pursuits. I manage my time very carefully. After a stressful day, it is amazing to be able to take two or three hours off to play or to practise. Medicine is my priority, but music is the opposite of my stressful work, in a way. In another way, listening is the most important aspect of diagnosis; communication is the most important aspect of management – music has helped me develop both of those skills.

“While primarily a solo artist, I relish opportunities to collaborate with fellow musicians whenever my schedule allows. Sometimes I am booked by Bahrain’s Ministry of Culture to perform at festivals, concerts, or events. Occasionally I have a corporate booking. The social aspect of music, especially the collaborative nature of ensemble playing, is immensely important to me. The synergy

ALUMNI PASTIMES

among musicians elevates the musical

“I urge every experience. Playing music is a deeply fulfilling experience, particularly when young health I witness the emotional response of an professional with audience, and feel a connection with it.

From the nerve-wracking experience of musical talent a broken guitar string mid-performance to embrace to the exhilarating moment when audience joins me on stage, every their passion for the musical encounter leaves a memorable music...“ mark. The therapeutic, healing impact of music is undervalued in my opinion.

The universal language of music transcends boundaries, enriching lives and creating connections. And if I get an opportunity to speak to an audience, I explain how my musical message is one of peace.

“At RCSI I had the pleasure of performing at talent shows and acoustic nights. I urge every young health professional with a musical talent to embrace their passion for music alongside their medical career – both can complement and enrich the other. My passion for music has had a positive impact on both my personal and professional life. It serves as a potent means of connecting with others and fostering empathy, qualities that are invaluable in my medical practice.”

DR LEENA RAHMAT | Medicine, 2008 Medical Oncologist, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Washington

“At five years of age, I started riding lessons in Dubai, home to the worldfamous Arabian ponies. I both ride and practise horsemanship (which encompasses the training, care and riding of horses) – two different specialties in the equestrian world. Both combine as a hobby for me; I do not compete or show.

“I don’t own a horse (yet) but I lease a young and playful five-year-old whose name is Teddy. I ride every week at an equestrian centre. I believe riding consistently at least twice a week is required to develop into a good and competent rider. Connecting with and understanding your horse are key to becoming an even better rider.

“My passion for horses and riding impacts my personal and professional life. Riding offers physical, emotional, mental and spiritual benefits. Physically, it develops core strength, motor function and balance which is helpful when on your feet at work.

“Emotionally, the connection with my horse is therapeutic for both of us and helps me recover from a high-tempo busy work schedule so I can return to work emotionally rested and be more present for my patients. The feeling I get from riding is bliss. When I ride I feel exhilaration, focus and an adrenaline-fuelled serenity. Mentally, riding keeps the mind sharp because it is a sport of lifelong learning, similar to the lifelong learning nature of medicine.

“Horses are extremely intelligent and empathetic and they can sense humans’ intentions, which keeps me honest.

Spiritually, the connection with horses is unlike any other – it’s challenging to describe. Horses see their human as a calm leader. As a result, riding teaches me to be intentional, composed and compassionate while riding. All of these qualities roll over into my non-equestrian life, allowing me to develop healthier personal relationships with family and friends as well as provide more compassionate and better care to my patients.

“The social aspect of riding is very important to me: interacting with riders between five and 70+ years old allows me learn from more experienced riders and help teach less experienced ones. I make new friends at the stables and pick up pointers about riding and horsemanship from fellow riders.

“I remember once playing with a young horse-in-training and running alongside him. It was the first time in his life he ran with a human and that level of trust, connection and playfulness was truly memorable. On the other hand, I remember a terrifying moment when a horse mistook my wrist for an apple: he was licking my hand and wrist and the next moment he bit down.

I heard a crack as my hamate bone in the wrist fractured. I was able to pull away my hand immediately. The poor horse was a bit startledas well.

“While riding may not be for everyone, my advice to young doctors is to remember that we are humans too – self-care and improving our quality of life is key to remaining fulfilled personally and professionally. Our hobbies provide a channel to hone skills that we use at work. Remain disciplined with your passions outside of work, particularly when life gets busy, because the busier you are the more resilient and balanced you will need to be to maintain a happy and healthy life – and be a better physician.”

“When I ride, I feel exhilaration, focus and an adrenalinefuelled serenity.“

LEFT Dr Leena Rahmat at work. ABOVE Dr Rahmat riding at the equestrian centre.

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ALUMNI PASTIMES

“Sailing seems absolutely right... it seems to be the closest one can be to being in tune with nature.“

Dr John Latham aboard his cruising yacht Scoundrel.

DR JOHN LATHAM | Medicine, 1978 Retired GP, Inner City Dublin

“My dad built a wooden sailing dinghy when I was six or seven and began sailing. His growing interest in sailing meant I was learning with him on the various boats he owned. I was lucky that in Dún Laoghaire there was a good Sea Scout group which encouraged me to learn some seamanship. I was even luckier to go to a boarding school which had a fleet of Cadet dinghies on Lough Erne, and so spent much of my time afloat, avoiding more disciplined sports such as cricket and rowing! We competed in team racing with other schools in Northern Ireland. As a child, you can pick up the essentials of how to sail a yacht very quickly and it becomes almost instinctual.

“I was much involved in RCSI Sailing Club. We had a fleet of three Firefly racing dinghies – one of them was called Dysdiadochokinesis. We used to race against UCD, TCD and on at least one occasion UCC. It was always a struggle to get the RCSI Sports Club committee to release sufficient funds to maintain these boats. Dr Seamus Gallen controlled the purse strings and I don’t think he felt that sailing was a serious sport. I do remember on one occasion sailing Dysdiadochokinesis in Dún Laoghaire harbour with my classmate, Anne Prendeville. We were hit by a ferocious squall and capsized ignominiously. Poor Anne had had enough of my skippering and swam to the East Pier, squelching up the steps to safety. This has not put her off sailing and she now skippers her own boat on the Helford River in Cornwall.

“I have a half-share in a 10-metre cruising yacht. Scoundrel is a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 349, built in France in 2017, easily sailed by two people or even

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one, behaving well in all sorts of conditions and very suitable for the type of coastal cruising we enjoy.

“Most of my sailing has been around Ireland and the British Isles. I charted a yacht in Greece for a memorable family holiday exploring Kefalonia, Ithica and some of the smaller Ionian Islands. We circumnavigated Ireland in 2018 and have spent time on the West Coast of Scotland and the Outer Hebrides.

Last year we cruised in West Cork as far as Bere Island in Bantry Bay. This year our focus will be on the Isles of Scilly and Cornwall.

“One of the reasons sailing is attractive is the element of potential danger and possible disaster. Of course, good seamanship reduces the chance of these events occurring, but they can happen. The most terrifying near-disaster happened at the end of our Greek cruise. Having left the rest of our family on Kefalonia, my wife Linda and I made the short passage to the small island of Kastos to the North East. The lovely little harbour of Kastos was calm and sunny as we manoeuvred to set our anchor. The chain became tangled in the electric windlass and the anchor was hanging down uselessly several metres below the bow of the boat. All of a sudden, there was a terrifying lightning flash, followed by the loudest thunderclap I had ever heard. A very strong gale blew up from the sea, driving us rapidly towards jagged rocks on the shore of the harbour. Torrential driving rain added to the chaos.

“I was up on deck struggling with the tangled anchor chain and Linda bravely gripped the wheel and engine controls. Responding to my frantic hand signals, she managed to turn the yacht around and with full throttle, steamed out of the harbour into the teeth of the squall. After several thunderclaps, having sorted the fouled chain, I looked around to see six or seven other yachts all belting out to sea with us, including an 80-foot superyacht that had been the scene of relaxed and luxurious cocktail sipping a few minutes earlier. When we eventually tied up to the pier at Kastos, we were physically shaking. A Greek skipper kindly greeted us with two shots of strong ouzo.

“How do I describe the feeling I get from sailing? Such a description might take thousands of words. In short, sailing a yacht feels absolutely right and when things are going well, it seems to be the closest one can be to being in tune with nature. Utilising two very dynamic fluids of very different densities, air and water, which are continually in motion, using sails, keel and rudder is both a challenge and an absolute pleasure.

“It has been a blessing to have a pastime that has allowed me to experience and enjoy tasks and challenges and a discipline that is so very different from those used in a busy, stressful and demanding career. Sailing has provided a wonderful way of allowing the effects of stress to slip away (for a time) and an opportunity to use a part of the brain that encourages a very positive mindset.”

ALUMNI PASTIMES

“Without music, I don’t think I’d be where I am today.“

Dr Tara Jamieson

DR TARA JAMIESON | Medicine, 2022 Paediatric Resident, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston “I began my music career singing along to the Canadian national anthem on children’s television! My love of singing was fostered by my family. I’m happy to say I now sing, play the guitar and the piano and have my own YouTube music channel. I am in a band with two other residents at the hospital – we call ourselves RTA, our initials, but also an acronym for Renal Tubular Acidosis – we haven’t decided what type yet!

“I practise almost every night after work, unless I am on a night shift. I record a performance every Sunday night at home for YouTube. Our band plays at events at the hospital. Collaboration is as important in music as at work – I love the beauty of blending our voices.

“I play a variety of music – my tastes are pretty eclectic. Music that makes me feel something helps me with those moments at work where I need to call on my emotional intelligence. It also makes me feel better after a long day in a busy hospital. Since I spend most of the day working really closely with other people, it is relaxing to take a little time for myself. I start with the same scales every time; it’s both a warm-up and a meditation and gives me confidence to move on to new pieces that I’m hoping to improve.

“When I was a student at RCSI, I busked on Grafton Street. I also appeared on Ireland’s Got Talent, and I was Velma Kelly in Chicago, the first full-length musical to be staged at RCSI. We had great fun, and I developed good friendships among the cast. I consider the connection with music and with those I’ve met through music to be hugely important. Having a passion outside medicine has given me perspective.

Without music, I don’t think I’d be where I am today. Music teaches you to work hard, to strive for perfection. I work every day to get a little bit better.

“To young medical professionals, I say make time for your passion. Music is part of who you are, and it’s very important not to lose who you are in the journey of becoming a physician.”

MS EMILY BOYLE | Medicine, 2004 Vascular Surgeon, Tallaght University Hospital, Dublin

“I have loved music since I was very young. My parents sent my sisters and I to music lessons from an early age, bought us a piano to practise on and encouraged us though lessons, exams, auditions, competitions. Piano is my main instrument, and I also play violin.

“Music is a huge part of my life. I play because I enjoy it but there are so many other advantages – meeting people, performing in wonderful venues, distraction from work. I think there is a lot of overlap between musical and surgical skills: surgery is a craft discipline, it also requires manual dexterity, the ability to focus on the task in front of you, and to perform under pressure. I feel playing music has positively impacted on my surgical skills.

“When I was doing a vascular fellowship in Belfast, the European Doctors Orchestra staged a concert in the city. I subsequently joined the orchestra – a personal highlight was playing Mahler’s Leningrad symphony in Manchester with them. My friends and I have also formed the Irish Doctors Orchestra.

Twice a year, we meet in a city for a weekend of intensive rehearsals and do a concert at the end of the weekend to support a local charity. We’re looking forward to our concert in Waterford in September. A musical friend organises a festival on beautiful Heir Island for a week in June and we play chamber music and orchestral music at that.

“In an orchestra, collaboration depends on the conductor, but for smaller ensembles you have to really communicate with your musician colleagues, which heightens the experience. In a large violin section, for example, you can literally feel yourself breathing and moving at the same time as your colleagues – the connection can be very powerful. Playing solo can be more challenging than playing in an

“I feel playing music has positively impacted on my surgical skills.“

Ms Emily Boyle

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ALUMNI PASTIMES

orchestra but you have complete freedom over how you play and interpret certain moments. When I am in the right frame of mind and playing something I enjoy, it feels wonderful.

“I played a few times at RCSI’s famous ‘ballad session’. Some of my classmates played in bands – there was a room in the basement on York Street with a drum kit where they used to practise and when they played at full volume you could almost feel the building and your bones vibrate. There was also a classical music evening held in the College Hall, which has a grand piano. There was also an upright piano behind the lecture theatres in York Street that was sometimes played between lectures. The late, great Professor Monkhouse, who among his many talents, was an organist, used to organise a choir to sing at the annual remembrance service and I have fond memories of him conducting us in a performance of Rachmaninoff ’s ‘Ave Maria’.

“It is important to keep up some interests outside of medicine as it is easy to let things go. There are so many demands on your time but making time for music is well worth it. One of the many things I love about music is that it that it almost forces you to take your mind off the job. It is both therapeutic and enjoyable. When you go back into work the next day you have renewed focus.”

singer. She still sings opera in Munich where she lives. It was through Frances that I met my wife, and so in a very meaningful way, I owe my happiness to her music.

“At RCSI, I was in a punk band called The Slipped Discs, with Paul Redmond on drums, Sean Perot on bass, Joe O’Neill on keyboard and Garvan Brown on guitar. I was a cross between Elvis and Freddie Mercury. We had great fun and we were very bad!

“The truth is that I don’t play any instrument. I wish I did but there it is.

I sing (and for a brief time I too studied with Veronica Dunne) and I am in our local church choir. And I talk – so if I have an instrument, it is my voice.

All attempts to get me to learn a musical instrument failed. Either I was too distracted or inattentive as a young boy or I was more interested in visual pursuits. I have always loved the cinema and I still paint. Since my retirement from clinical practice I have gone back to study painting with Ken Donfield at NCAD. During the lockdown I started putting my pictures up on Instagram and so I discovered a great way of connecting with people, despite all the obstacles and barriers between us.

“Although I have no instrument, I am fortunate to be in a wonderful band, called TAOC, or The Art Of Collaboration. It is led by the renowned international clarinettist Paul Roe, and it includes wonderful musicians like the uilleann piper Mick O’Brien, fiddle player Ultan O’Brien and the Coohe brothers, Shahab and Shayan, who play Persian instruments. TAOC has many other members from other walks of life, from engineering to computing and psychology. You may ask what I do, and the answer is I collaborate – sometimes in song but more often in spoken word. I really enjoy being with this diverse extraordinary bunch of people. The collaboration is everything for me. The opportunity to share with great performers and with the audience is hard to match. I love the mental health acronym CHIME. When music works for me, it is because to helps us to CHIME. That is, Connect to Hope with Identity, Meaning and Empowerment. If it CHIMES, it is working.

“We rehearse for specific events depending on everyone’s availability, but the performance is largely improvised. I am never entirely certain what is going to happen and that’s part of the excitement! The idea is to explore different approaches to collaborating while using music – using music-making as a metaphor for collaborative practices in general. We explore the variety of our natures and differing ways of working and playing together. We engage the audience in a musical mental health project that is different every time.

We performed recently at the Hugh Lane Gallery, the Workman’s Club, and Tallaght Civic Theatre. Our stuff is available on SoundCloud.

“I listen to music constantly. I am currently going through a phase of listening to Erich Korngold. His music for the 1938 classic Robin Hood, with Errol Flynn, never fails to lift me. Pop stuff is James Taylor and The Beatles, so I am very much a child of my time. On long walks I listen to romantic symphonies, and let my imagination run.

“Music has an impact on our wellbeing and mental health that is beyond words. My advice for young doctors who are musicians is to make more music. Sing, dance and play as much as you can!” ■

“My advice for young doctors who are musicians is to make more music. Sing, dance and play as much as you can!“

Professor Jim Lucey with members of The Art Of Collaboration band.

PROFESSOR JIM LUCEY | Medicine, 1983 State Inspector of Mental Health Services, Ireland

“I am a psychiatrist, so of course I see everything through the lens of childhood.

My love of music began at home. My mother played the piano, and she loved music. There were occasional musical parties with family and friends where everyone would sing a party piece, songs from Moore’s Melodies to Hoogy Carmichael, and there was something called a radiogram in the sitting room, a radio deep in a walnut wooden case with a turntable on the top.

“Our first stereo was purchased for my sister’s 21st birthday. I was ten. It came with long-playing records, LPs. These are my go-to records to this day: The Beatles, The Dubliners, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, and Gershwin. When I was 15, my younger sister Frances entered the College of Music in Chatham Street [now at TUD] to study voice with Veronica Dunne. Her career changed my life. Frances went on to make music her career as a professional opera

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY KIP CARROLL

EDUCATION

Rebecca Kirrane, Senior Clinical Skills and Simulation Technician, at work in the mock operating theatre at RCSI SIM.

ALL POSSIBLE SCENARIOS With diverse career backgrounds and a wide range of skill sets, the RCSI SIM team work to provide a truly dynamic learning environment

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S

ince opening in 2017, the RCSI SIM Centre for Simulation Education and Research, a mini-hospital occupying three floors of 26 York Street, has become a hugely important part of the educational experience offered by the university.

One of the largest and most sophisticated medical simulation centres in Europe, with state-of-the-art facilities, RCSI SIM aims to improve patient safety, education and research through immersive and realistic simulation-based learning tools and techniques. By pushing the boundaries of innovation, RCSI provides a next-generation learning environment not just for medical students of the university but also to postgraduate surgical trainees and allied healthcare professionals at every stage of their careers.

RCSI SIM incorporates the National Surgical and Clinical Skills Centre, where professionals and trainees can master their skills in a multi-purpose ‘wet-lab’, surgical simulator suite and fully-functioning operating theatre. Each area is equipped with the latest laparoscopic equipment and an audiovisual technology-enhanced learning system, which connects the simulation-based learning environments with performance assessment tools.

“RCSI has been an innovator in simulation-based education, opening Ireland’s first medical simulation centre in Beaumont Hospital in 2000,” explains Dr Claire Condron (Postgraduate Studies, Class of 2022), Director of Simulation Education at RCSI SIM. “Ever since, simulation has allowed RCSI to optimise educational experiences for our learners.”

EDUCATION

A Diverse and Creative Team

With a background in biomedical science and over 20 years’ experience in designing, delivering and evaluating teaching and learning across the healthcare professions, Claire leads a team with a wide variety of career backgrounds and an impressive range of skill sets. Together with health professional educators, they design, develop and fabricate immersive simulation-based learning activities, provide simulation faculty development, and train simulated participants.

Dermot Daly, Head of Operations, is an engineer who has worked in electronics, quality and product engineering, material science and nanotechnology, while Rebecca Kirrane, Senior Skills and Simulation Technician, is a simulation-based learning designer skilled in special effects makeup and moulage, the art of creating fake injuries such as gunshot wounds.

A recent addition to the team, Clinical Skills and Simulation Technician Robyn Mullen is a sculptor, who originally trained as a mortuary technician.

Before he joined RCSI SIM, Caoimhín Ó Conghaile, Senior Skills and Simulation Technician, studied theatre, medical device innovation and healthcare innovation and worked in film as a production designer, and as a surgical theatre assistant in St James University Hospital. Another member of the team, Adam Roche, juggles his responsibilities as Senior Simulation Technician with a part-time PhD, exploring simulation initiatives in neurosurgery.

Claire’s area of research interest is understanding the social architecture and scaffolding required to provide authentic experiential learning and practice opportunities to different cohorts of learners. She places the involvement of service users front and centre in the design and delivery of RCSI SIM’s programmes.

Higher surgical trainee Dr Pheobe Lyons with Dr Adeel Zafar (Postgraduate Studies, Class of 2015), Consultant Vascular Surgeon, University Hospital Limerick.

Dermot Daly, Head of Operations in RCSI SIM’s Innovation Lab.

“RCSI SIM, an educational facility that’s more akin to live theatre... where no two days are ever the same. In essence, RCSI SIM puts on new productions every day.“ “Training is a critical part of our response to equip people with the knowledge, skills and tools required to stay competitive and engaged,” says Claire. “Simulation enhances the range of clinical experiences for our learners and motivates them to realise their full potential and enter healthcare practice competent and prepared.”

With creativity at its core, RCSI SIM draws on the varied skills of its staff to provide a truly dynamic place of learning, an educational facility that’s more akin to live theatre than the dull lecture halls and dusty labs, which were the hallmark of medical education in the past, a place where no two days are ever the same.

ABOVE LEFT Mr Daragh Moneley (Medicine, Class of 1996) observes higher surgical trainees Dr David Cagney and Dr Liga Akmenkaln. ABOVE RIGHT Dr Claire Condron, Director of Simulation Education at RCSI SIM.

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EDUCATION

Higher surgical trainees at work during a Vascular Masterclass at RCSI SIM.

Creating Real-Life Scenarios

In essence, RCSI SIM puts on new productions every day, with Claire and her team involved in everything from writing scenarios, to applying stage make-up, making fake skin and tissue, providing costumes and directing simulated patients in their roles. A storage room, which Claire describes as “a Halloween shop” is packed with hundreds of different fake body parts.

On any given day there could be students practising arterial blood gas tests, inserting nasogastric tubes, taking blood pressures calculating early warning scores and administering ECGs. There could be a major incident re-creation, with opportunities to test out the consequences of different decisions as one might in a video game, a forceps delivery using a state-of-the-art pregnancy manikin, and an upper GI course examining different ways of handling internal bleeds using pig stomachs.

Technology-enhanced simulation training is associated with improved outcomes in patient care, and by mirroring a real hospital environment, RCSI SIM provides ideal learning conditions for practice and rehearsal to enable the development of skills. Working with high-fidelity patient simulators in the fields of emergency medicine, surgery, paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology, neurology, anaesthesia, nursing and other clinical specialties, students and healthcare professionals can practise and refine their skills in a safe, controlled, and immersive environment.

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“The lab works to create bespoke physical simulation models, which can be modified and improved after simulation testing.”

The ‘Halloween Shop’ of fake blood, bruising powders and costumes.

EDUCATION

High-Stakes Training

But it’s not just about mastering clinical skills in a safe learning environment before working directly with patients. By focusing on the development of other key skills such as dynamic decision-making, teamwork, communication and professionalism, RCSI SIM enables healthcare professionals to develop character, build resilience and hone leadership skills to equip them to be able to handle any situation which might arise during the course of their career with confidence and competence.

Moreover, creating high-risk or rare procedures in a simulated setting allows for education and training where it may not be feasible to gain experience through direct patient care. Simulation can also be used for high-stakes training, such as emergency response or disaster preparedness.

“Our goal is to recreate realistic clinical scenarios that are difficult to replicate in real-world settings, and to systematically study and debrief the impact of different interventions on patient outcomes,” explains Claire.

Simulation scenarios include critical actions in both clinical management and communication skills. Students are each assigned roles and guided through scenarios designed to address complex issues, such as end-of-life concerns, informed consent and disclosure of medical errors. Each simulation space allows for multi-angle video capture to enable participants to reflect on their performance independently and in an interactive debriefing session with others following the simulation scenario.

Tim Lawler, Senior Simulation Technician using the Mentice Endovascular Simulator.

Simulated Patients

If Claire and her team are the director, producer and backstage crew, then the simulated patients are the ones who bring each performance to life. RCSI has a panel of over 100 simulated patients on whom it can call, and their profile reflects the diversity of the patient population and contemporary Irish society.

The use of simulated patients is a proven method for helping learners gain skills and confidence in communicating, interviewing, physical examination, counselling and patient management in a low-risk environment. A mix of professional actors and members of the public, many of them retired doctors, the simulated patients are commonly engaged to simulate a wide range of scenarios, from routine medical check-ups to complex medical emergencies and trained to accurately and consistently portray a specific set of symptoms or medical conditions. The patient lounge operates as a green room, where the simulated patients can rehearse their lines. They also provide feedback on student performance.

LEFT and RIGHT Undergraduate students at work in a Clinical Skills session at RCSI SIM.

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EDUCATION

Clinical Skills and Simulation Technicians Simon Horne (Postgraduate Studies, Class of 2023), Niamh Murphy and Robyn Mullen preparing Temporal Artery Biopsy models using simulated vessels and skin pads.

“RCSI SIM brings people from lots of different backgrounds and disciplines together and the way we come up with ideas collaboratively is fascinating.”

LEFT Subdural haematoma model developed in partnership with students. RIGHT Senior Simulation Technician Adam Roche with the retrosigmoid craniotomy model.

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Scene Setting

The third floor of the building functions as a GP surgery or out-patient clinic.

Rebecca describes it as “OSCE Central” during exam season with medical students interacting with simulated patients to take a history, break bad news or practise other communication or practical skills. Each of the ten rooms is equipped with audiovisual equipment so students can watch themselves afterwards and reflect back on how they did.

Up on the fourth floor, the stakes are higher. One recent scenario played out in the operating theatre involved a patient being given the wrong medication by the anaesthetist and remaining awake when the surgeons arrived; another saw a patient having given consent to surgery on the left knee, but it was the right knee that had been marked up. In some situations, for example when a simulated patient is known to be a Jehovah’s Witness but has not refused blood products prior to collapse, there are no black and white answers.

“Some of the scenarios are very complex,” explains Rebecca. “For MASCOT (Multidisciplinary Anaesthesia Surgery Crisis Operation Training) the cases tend to be unusual. These are for people who are already working in a hospital who are coming to us to learn about things that they wouldn’t see every day.

The scenario might take 20 minutes here, but they’ll do a debrief, which could take an hour or longer. So they learn afterwards as well; it’s not just in the moment. Traumatic cases are supposed to be debriefed in the hospital, but we know it doesn’t happen all the time. And so that’s why sometimes when they open up the can of worms here it can be upsetting and the trainees get quite emotional. For these days we have Professor Eva Doherty or another psychologist on site to address human factors.”

EDUCATION

“By mirroring a real hospital environment, RCSI SIM provides ideal learning conditions for practice and rehearsal.”

Innovation to Optimise Patient Care

“Simulation is an effective decision-making tool that provides understanding of the complexities involved in healthcare service provision,” says Claire. “By integrating research with teaching, we aim to provide the model for practice development and health systems research to optimise patient care pathways.”

RCSI SIM’s Innovation Lab is a hub for the simulation-based community to develop and explore new ideas with faculty, researchers, educators, students and simulated patients.

“We spent quite a lot of time here building every kind of model you can think of, from teeth to eyes to jaws,” explains Rebecca. “It’s much more costeffective to make our own than buy these things in.”

Creating fake skin out of latex and leather is one job, with the team striving for ever better hepatic characteristics. And given that this year’s graduating class come from more than 90 different countries, it’s important to have a diverse range of skin tones.

“We’re doing quite a lot of projects around bruising and what bruising looks like on different coloured skin,” says Rebecca. “The way I bruise having bluewhite skin is quite different to how a darker skin would bruise. So students learning all about me and my skin and then going back to their home countries where skin might show different symptoms would not be the best training.”

3D printing and wearable simulation technology to teach skills such as cannulation are becoming ever more important, and students learn skills such as suturing through repeated practice. Manikins come with heart and lung sounds that students can listen to with a stethoscope, and increasingly are compatible with an ultrasound probe. There’s a €60,000 electronic baby that Claire says is “sophisticated in that it can bend at the knee and arm, go into seizure and has a very lifelike fontanelle, but is very easy to break.”

The lab works to create bespoke physical simulation models, which can be modified and improved after simulation testing. They are then assessed for

Undergraduate students practise inserting a nasogastric tube at RCSI SIM.

Caoimhín Ó Conghaile holds a model created with the Centre’s 3D printer.

their impact on learning outcomes and integration into teaching programmes.

Simulation science within the innovation lab facilitates networking, knowledge transfer, interdisciplinary collaborations and mentoring, and helps to bridge the gap between simulation research and clinical practice.

Students can undertake a six-week research project of their choice and recently, student Tom Redmond, working with Senior Technician Adam Roche, created a retrosigmoid craniotomy model that he has tested at Beaumont Hospital with consultant neurosurgeon Mr Gulam Zilani. This was the second design-based evaluation of this model, which also simulates microvascular decompression of the trigeminal nerve. The model is taking shape, with one further design phase to go before it’s ready to be used in training.

Outreach and Collaboration

RCSI SIM has been involved in numerous outreach events over the years.

Every year, the Centre welcomes hundreds of secondary school students as part of the Transition Year MiniMed programme, Undergraduate Open Day and other events. ACCESS learners participate in the Creative Arts Summer School with National College of Art and Design, and members of the public are welcomed on European Researchers’ Night, Culture Night and various open events throughout the year.

The Centre collaborates with higher education institutions, industry partners and professional training bodies to adapt experiential simulation-based learning to their needs. The ongoing collaboration with Dublin Fire Brigade, an early adopter of RCSI’s facilities and technology, delivers paramedic training, particularly in the area of obstetrics.

RCSI SIM also collaborates nationally and internationally with clinical specialties and industry, including leading simulation technology companies and medical equipment manufacturers, in designing courses, practical execution and assessments.

With such a wide range of activities ongoing, RCSI SIM is one of the most dynamic and exciting parts of the university.

“It is,” says Dermot, “an incredibly stimulating place to work. RCSI SIM brings people from lots of different backgrounds and disciplines together and the way we come up with ideas collaboratively is fascinating.” ■

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DEFENDING THE BRAIN

The Brains Behind It

Against physical and psychological impacts on the brain, there’s a team of defenders to protect it

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E

very day, the most complex organ in the body is subject to an onslaught of attacks from physical, psychological and technological forces. Defending the brain against tumours and stroke, diseases such as epilepsy, Alzheimer’s and Motor Neurone Disease, and conditions including anxiety, depression and addiction, requires an army of experts, with each bringing their own arsenal of skills, techniques and research to bear on the physiology and function of the brain, and its relation both to the rest of the body and the world beyond.

As collaboration between disciplines becomes ever more fruitful, the potential for breakthroughs that will have an enormous impact on our ability to defend the brain against forces from both outside and within, makes this one of the most exciting areas of medical practice and research today. RCSI alumni with a wide variety of interests and expertise are at the forefront of this important work.

DEFENDING THE BRAIN

THE NEUROSCIENTIST Dr Cristina R. Reschke Postgraduate Studies, Class of 2019

Dr Cristina R. Reschke is a Lecturer in the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences and Funded Investigator within FutureNeuro, the SFI Research Centre for Chronic and Rare Neurological Diseases at RCSI. She trained as a Clinical Pharmacist and holds an MSc and PhD in Pharmacology, both focused on the treatment of epilepsy. Cristina’s major discoveries are on microRNA-based therapies and the pre-clinical development of novel oligonucleotide delivery systems. She has received a number of prestigious international awards, including the Harinarayan Young Neuroscientist Award and the Grass Foundation Young Investigator Award, endowed by the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) and the American Epilepsy Society (AES), respectively. Cristina is the inaugural recipient of the CURE Epilepsy Cameron Boyce Foundation Taking Flight Award and currently holds a clinical research grant from the Dravet Syndrome Foundation. Cristina serves in a number of ILAE task forces and currently serves as the Academic member for the Irish Epilepsy League Council.

Defending the brain by developing next-generation treatments for epilepsy As a neuroscientist I try to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms of the brain and how changes in these intricate networks may impact and lead to the development of diseases. My main focus is on epilepsy, which represents a pressing and widespread medical challenge, impacting around 1% of the worldwide population. It is a complex neurological disorder with a spectrum of diseases characterised by focal or generalised seizures and affects people of all ages. The current diagnostic landscape faces a 30% misdiagnosis rate, and existing treatments often provide only symptom suppression, leading to high refractory rates and debilitating side-effects. Surgical interventions are limited, apply to a minority and do not tackle co-morbidities. Together with my team, I am working towards the development of next-generation treatment and diagnosis for different types of epilepsies through innovative approaches.

Working to understand the importance of the circadian clock In the epilepsy field we are moving towards treatments that can modify the course of the disease rather than treat isolated symptoms. Leveraging from extensive preclinical work, we expect to see progress towards clinical trials with antisense oligonucleotides and gene therapies. These modalities of advanced therapies, however, require the precise detection of not only the pathogenic triggers, but also their location (brain region and cell type) and their dynamics.

More than 80% of the protein-coding genes, which may be targets of these therapeutic modalities, are known to be controlled by the circadian clock, rhythmically oscillating approximately every 24 hours. Each brain region uniquely contributes to this oscillation since each brain cell type has its own clock. Unpublished data from my lab shows that prolonged seizures are able to remap this expected oscillatory signature in the hippocampus, an area very relevant for the most common type of drug-resistant epilepsy. To add intricacy, clinical evidence shows that more than 90% of people with epilepsy present circadian rhythmicity in their seizure occurrence. It means, when they present seizures, these may mostly cluster only at day or at night time. Overall, these dynamics seem to be highly specific to each person and we hope to discover, in the future, the underlying molecular changes that currently are not known.

THE NEUROPATHOLOGIST Professor Michael Farrell Medicine, Class of 1974

Professor Michael Farrell graduated from RCSI with a degree in medicine before undertaking an internship at the Richmond Hospital, Dublin. Following completion of the MRCPI, Professor Farrell began his training in pathology at St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin and later at the Westminster Hospital in London. After the MRCPath, he began a career in neuropathology at the University of Western Ontario, Canada where he also undertook a fellowship in neuroimmunology.

Later, Michael succeeded Professor Paddy Bofin as Neuropathologist to the Richmond Hospital, moving to the new Beaumont Hospital in 1987. He 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. In 2023 Professor Farrell was the recipient of the RCSI Inspiring Educator Alumni Award.

Defending the brain through brain banking Professor Francesca Brett and I co-founded The Dublin Brain Bank in 2008; it is currently under the directorship of Dr Jane Cryan, Consultant Neuropathologist at Beaumont Hospital. A collaboration between the Neuropathology Department of Beaumont Hospital and RCSI, it is based in RCSI Smurfit Building, Beaumont Hospital. Through supporting brain donation, the Dublin Brain Bank offers patients and members of the public the opportunity to support medical science in a very tangible manner. Donation of precious brain tissue facilitates research into neurological disorders, providing valuable information on the diagnosis and treatment of many common neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Motor Neurone Disease, which will ultimately lead to improved quality of life for patients.

Learning from the study of the post-mortem brain As we enter an era of potentially revolutionary treatments for all neurodegenerative diseases, it has never been more critical that the human brain continues to be studied after death. Only by doing so can we be sure not only that the original diagnosis was correct, but also that we can measure the contribution of other hidden, age-related conditions. The human brain displays enormous resilience and possesses massive functional reserves which go a long way towards explaining why the same pathologic process results in dementia in one person but not in another. For this reason alone, the post-mortem study of the clinically normal human brain is essential to provide a background against which we can measure the effects of age, prior trauma, hidden pathology, and the effectiveness of any new treatments. Much has been learned about the long term effects of brain trauma, but there are many individuals who have sustained concussive brain injury yet remain neurologically healthy into old life. We simply don’t have the answer to why this is so, hence the need to continue to study both the diseased and the healthy human brain after death using all of the latest research tools. Brain Banking is expensive, but the costs are miniscule when compared to the rising financial impact of neurodegeneration on our ageing but long-lived society.

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DEFENDING THE BRAIN

THE NEUROSURGEON Mr Darach Crimmins Medicine, Class of 1993

After graduation from RCSI in 1993 and three years on general surgical scheme, Darach became a Fellow in 1996. Following SpR training in Yorkshire, and two years’ fellowship in Paris and London in paediatric neurosurgery, Darach worked as consultant neurosurgeon in Leeds General Infirmary 2005 to 2010. He is a Consultant Neurosurgeon in CHI at Temple Street Children’s Hospital and Beaumont Hospital since 2010.

Darach is the National Lead for Paediatric Neurosurgery and examiner in Intercollegiate Board Neurosurgery Examinations (FRCS(SN)) since 2012.

Preventing further neurological injury Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) Temple Street is an acute paediatric teaching hospital. The majority of the children we treat have hydrocephalus – congenital or for some other reason – requiring surgeries with or without implants.

A further 10-15% present with brain tumours and need surgery before they have other treatment, such as chemotherapy. Two thirds of these patients have benign tumours and don’t need further treatment but any brain tumour can cause neurological injury. We treat patients with head and spinal trauma, cysts, and vascular conditions such as aneurysm, and we do epilepsy surgery.

My job, and that of my colleagues, is to provide optimal neurosurgical care.

Tools that deliver improved patient outcomes Perioperative diagnostic and planning imaging is improving all the time, and this is where incremental improvements can result in small breakthroughs.

Brain surgery is complex and expensive and requires high-quality microscopes, laser and ultrasonic dissectors. Image guidance is key: we use intraoperative CT, MRI and ultrasound scanning and intraoperative EEG/ ECoG, all helping us navigate to the precise area of the brain that requires access. The aim is to be as minimally invasive as possible. We recently raised charity funding to acquire the right tool – an ultrasonic aspirator – to use with our neuro-endoscope (up to this we had been using one on loan from another hospital) so that patient recovery time is reduced – a young patient can go home without having to spend one or two weeks in hospital. This was a big leap forward. Our unit is one of very few in the UK and Ireland using this technology. There are new developments all the time, but it’s less about the breakthroughs and more about the hard work, efficiency and commitment of the teams at every level. At Temple Street, the culture is patient-focused and we get things done.

Brain surgery is complex and expensive and requires high-quality microscopes, laser and ultrasonic dissectors.“ 18

THE ADVANCED NURSE PRACTITIONER Michelle Doyle Nursing and Midwifery, Class of 2007 Postgraduate Studies, Class of 2017

Michelle Doyle is a registered advanced nurse practitioner (RANP) in paediatric neurosurgery. She has been working with the neurosurgery team since it commenced in Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) Temple Street in 2008. Michelle completed her diploma in General Nurse training at UCD/St Vincent’s Hospital, Postgraduate Sick Children’s Nursing at UCD/Temple Street, degree in Nursing and Midwifery at RCSI, Masters in Nursing/Clinical Health Sciences Education at Trinity College Dublin, Postgraduate Certificate in Neuroscience Nursing at RCSI/Beaumont Hospital, certificate in Nurse Prescribing at RCSI and Advanced Nurse Practice at Trinity College Dublin. Prior to her present role, Michelle worked for seven years as a clinical nurse educator on St Gabriel’s Ward, Temple Street, which specialises in caring for neurosurgery patients, and for three years as a paediatric neurosurgery nurse specialist. Michelle has led and facilitated many nursing study days/conferences at both a local and national level and is the founder and one of the module coordinators of the National Paediatric Neuroscience Module based in CHI at Temple Street/DCU. In 2020, Michelle and her neurosurgical nursing colleagues won CHI’s Extraordinary Clinical Team Recognition Award.

Defending the brain through caring for paediatric neurosurgery patients As the only RANP for paediatric neurosurgery in the country, part of my role entails carrying out procedures traditionally only performed by neurosurgical registrars or consultants. These tasks include tapping cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from ventricular access devices for premature babies and children with hydrocephalus, removing external ventricular drains and intracranial pressure probes, and obtaining CSF samples from external ventricular drains.

Also, a substantial part of my role is assessing, prescribing and discharging neurosurgery patients on a daily basis, ensuring they receive all the necessary education, support and expert advice.

Holistic care at Ireland’s first nurse-led paediatric neurosurgery clinic I set up the first nurse-led paediatric neurosurgery clinic in Ireland in January 2020; it has been extremely successful to date. I review neurosurgical patients from 0-16 years old in the outpatient department. These include patients with hydrocephalus, head injuries and those requiring wound management advice. I established the National Neurosurgery Educational Roadshow alongside the neurosurgery team, visiting all the paediatric hospitals around the country, delivering expert talks on our specialty. I am hoping in the near future to be involved in setting up a concussion clinic for CHI.

DEFENDING THE BRAIN

THE PHYSIOTHERAPIST Geraldine O’Callaghan Postgraduate Studies, Class of 2010

A specialist physiotherapist in stroke and neurology, Geraldine graduated from the University of East London with a BSc in Physiotherapy, and holds an MSc in Neurology and Gerontology from RCSI. Geraldine also has a Diploma in Project Management and Leadership.

Currently, she is completing a PhD at RCSI as part of the iPASTAR (Improving Pathways for Acute STroke And Rehabilitation) programme. Before starting her PhD under the HRB Collaborative Doctoral Awards Programme (CDA) with iPASTAR, Geraldine worked as a senior physiotherapist in rehabilitation at the HSE and the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire. Her research interests include stroke and motor neurone disease, and she has published research in both areas.

Defending the brain through rehabilitation As a physiotherapist with extensive experience in rehabilitation, my work focuses on defending against the physical impacts on the brain through applying rehabilitation techniques and developing innovative therapies.

Techniques to maximise functional independence for individuals with neurological conditions include personalised exercise programmes, balance and coordination training, and motor skills practice. By stimulating neuroplasticity through targeted activities and interventions, I work to improve long-term outcomes for people with stroke and other neurological conditions. Additionally, I have co-created national guidelines for the physiotherapy management of motor neurone disease and co-developed an innovative strategy to support and improve the transition from hospital to home, following stroke. This dual focus on rehabilitation and innovation helps patients achieve better recovery and maintain a higher quality of life.

Advances in stroke care Recent advances in stroke care have come about through comprehensive, systemic improvements which standardise care and enhance treatment outcomes. These advances include the implementation of national stroke plans; regular updating and dissemination of national and European stroke guidelines to ensure people with stroke receive the most effective and appropriate treatments; and the inclusion of people with lived experience, their families, and members of the public in research and quality improvement initiatives to develop tailored solutions to meet individual post-stroke needs.

‟

Recent advances in stroke care have come about through comprehensive, systemic improvements which standardise care and enhance treatment outcomes.“

THE PSYCHIATRIST Dr John Cooney Medicine, Class of 1986

A consultant psychiatrist working in liaison psychiatry based at St James’s Hospital, Dublin, John is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin. Early in his career, John was a Senior Registrar/Lecturer at the Maudsley Hospital and at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. He also worked at St Patrick’s Hospital, Dublin specialising in the treatment of mood disorders and as a consultant psychiatrist and Senior Lecturer at the South London & Maudsley NHS Trust. He was Clinical Director of the Haematology, Oncology, Palliative Care and Psychological Medicine Services at St James’s and a former Chair of the Medical Board. He has an MD on the relationship between stress and mental illness from the National University of Ireland. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland and a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in London.

Defending the brain from decline Brain insults arise from trauma – both psychological and physical – toxicity from drugs and alcohol, and acute and/or chronic disease processes, to name some of the more common sources. These all arise in my work as a general hospital (aka liaison) psychiatrist. Back in the mid-1980s when I graduated, the teaching was that brain development pretty much finished at around age 18. Since then, the concept of neuroplasticity – that experience alters brain structure and by extension brain function – is well established. Interventions – be they physical, psychological or social – have the potential to alter what the brain experiences. The consequences of altering the trajectory of emotional, behavioural and brain function can move the person from decline and decay to growth and regeneration. We see the toll that the many and varied insults take on brain function but many of the symptoms are non-specific manifestations of disturbance of brain function. Determining the origin of the symptoms therefore requires that we must systematically evaluate those symptoms to lead us to the correct intervention. It is more complicated as it is people we are talking about and so the colouring of a presentation will vary often for any given individual.

Evolution rather than revolution I would say that in terms of psychiatric therapeutics, it’s a picture of evolution rather than revolution. We understand that pharmacological or acoustic/ emotional (psychotherapeutic) interventions all alter brain experience and have the potential to alter brain dysfunction, whether in terms of mood or behaviour for example. The correct sequencing of the available interventions and the demonstration of the efficacy of agents such as ketamine and psilocybin add further to the arsenal of options. Neuromodulation – originally with ECT, which is still one of the most effective treatment for severe life-threatening depression – now includes less invasive techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation and a number of variants therein. The current vogue for a trauma-focused approach to patients is welcome but must be balanced against the fact that trauma does not inevitably mean adverse outcomes but can lead to post-traumatic growth: that which doesn’t kill us can make us stronger. We should not forget the old lessons in the search for the new and exciting! ■

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THE RCSI 1784 SOCIETY

The RCSI 1784 Society is a community of individuals who have chosen to leave a gift to RCSI in their will.

The Society encompasses members of the Founder’s Club and the Colles Club, in addition to legators.

The history of RCSI is embodied in the Society’s symbol; the iconic doors of 123 St Stephen’s Green, which tell the story of thousands of RCSI graduates. Dating from 1810, the doors are part of Dublin’s rich Georgian heritage, and are synonymous with the development of surgical innovation and the future of medical education as it unfolds.

These doors carry with them not just a history of the College, but a memory of all the moments from within the College walls – from exam frustrations to conferring celebrations to the unwritten rule that students could only enter through the historic front doors of 123 St Stephen’s Green upon their graduation.

Perhaps you remember that feeling of walking through those doors for the first time. The exam nerves. The smell of the Anatomy Room. The impact that RCSI had on you.

The 1784 Society is our way of acknowledging the generous benefactors who choose to leave a forever gift in support of RCSI. Thank you.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

ALUMNI GIVING

OPENING DOORS TO THE FUTURE

“I

Richard and Lucille Nora with their grandchildren

n a conversation with Aíne Gibbons, she asked me to share my thoughts as to why I made enduring provisions for RCSI in my will – hopefully to be activated only in the far future! It is bittersweet for me to write about my legacy intentions for RCSI Alumni Magazine – I would much rather explain my reasoning to you in person.

My affection for the College, for Ireland, for my classmates and many friends, is certainly the genesis. As I age, I care less how maudlin that might sound. Much of what I have achieved throughout my career is in substantial part due to the gamble that the College took on a character like me years ago. The person I am today (for better or worse) was much moulded by my years and experiences in Dublin.

As we all know, there are a million good causes – I have chaired foundations, completed mission trips, swung a hammer, and still there is more pain than there are resources in this world. Why do I support RCSI rather than some other institution or cause? I do so not for some print or plaster immortality – Herodotus pointed out that none of us are known for who we really were past three generations... There are much more practical reasons – the desire to be effective, to make an impact on future generations of students, and above all the performance record of the College.

The College bears the imprint of O’Flanagan, MacGowan, O’Malley, Horgan, Kelly, and so many others.

The culture and infrastructure they have built has demonstrably expanded and improved healthcare in Ireland and across the world.

Consistency, leadership, and vision – that is a pretty good performance

“The desire to be effective, to make an impact on future generations of students, and above all the performance record of the College.”

Richard and Lucille Nora with their grandchildren

record. Along with my fellow alumni, I am part of the legacy that these individuals have created and that is something to be very proud of. I stand in the shadow of great women and men, but by including RCSI in my will I hope to also stand on their shoulders and support the College’s future ambitions.

Sometimes it is easier to establish credibility with some distance over time and in geography. From four years and 4,000 miles away, RCSI has established that credibility with me!

I hope you will give thought to joining me in considering RCSI in your legacy plans.”

Dr Richard Nora, Class of 1980 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

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ART AT RCSI

ART AT RCSI

I

With A Flourish

The Association of Medical and Dental Graduates commissioned a spectacular stained glass piece, as a gift to RCSI. The making of Floreat is an interesting story. Antonia Hart reports

n the foyer of the Library, on the second floor of 26 York Street, glows a gift to the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland from the Association of Medical and Dental Graduates: a stained glass piece, commissioned by the Association from George Walsh. RCSI had a number of stained glass windows already, including a couple from the Harry Clarke Studios, and a trio in the Albert Theatre depicting the history of medicine and surgery, which are also the work of George Walsh.

In 1960, the Association presented a window of the College crest, which is in the President’s Office in 123 St Stephen’s Green. While the new building at 26 York Street was in development, well before the pandemic lockdowns which began in Ireland in early 2020, the Association began turning over the idea of giving another gift of stained glass. The idea, says committee member Amanda Browne (Class of 1994, FRCSI (Ophth)), was to celebrate RCSI, its leadership and achievements locally and internationally, and to honour the connection maintained between it and its graduates. “We wanted a more contemporary piece, to reflect the university in modern times, we wanted to

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take the traditional from 123 St Stephen’s Green and bring it to the modern building at 26 York Street.”

Browne knew that it would have to be a special artist to take on the project, someone capable and experienced who could develop this contemporary concept. “I started researching, and I came across George, and knew he was the perfect fit. I didn’t realise at the time (or perhaps I knew it but it was buried somewhere), that he had already done the RCSI Albert Theatre commission, a stunningly beautiful piece, years ago. But when we put it together, it just made it seem even more right that he should be the one to do this piece. It was a magical fit.”

That the university already had windows from the Harry Clarke Studios meant another lovely link with George Walsh, because George was apprenticed to his father, the stained glass artist George Stephen Walsh, who in turn had been apprenticed to Harry Clarke.

“My father joined Clarke’s, and Clarke sent him to the School of Art to learn anatomy.” This was the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art, later the National

ART AT RCSI

College of Art, now the National College of Art and Design. Clarke himself had studied there, and was later on the teaching staff. “He was sent there, and he was apprenticed to Clarke, and he worked for Clarke, and he was constantly talking about Clarke, but do you listen? Of course you don’t listen.” George Jr. must have listened a bit: later, when his father had moved the family north, to bring a more contemporary influence to the work of the Clokey studio in Belfast, he began his own apprenticeship, which would last for seven years.

The family’s next move was to Wisconsin. “I finished my apprenticeship there in the Conrad Pickel studio, where my father loved the work, but he couldn’t take the climate. So we moved back to Ireland, and he started a studio.”

In Ireland, stained glass has traditionally been associated with ecclesiastical buildings, but church building is in decline, and glass panels, walls, windows, installations, and rooflights can be so beautiful that there is a movement towards encouraging architects to incorporate them into secular buildings, both private and public. In a Victorian or Edwardian house, you often see a stained glass fanlight, sidelight, or even a rooflight, and at certain times of the day colour floods into the house, an animation that is an intrinsic part of its atmosphere.

The Edwardians, Walsh points out, really thought about these things. In this instance, Walsh’s work did not form part of the architects’ original concept for the building, but it sits beautifully at its heart, still, and yet interacting with the structure. The particular combination of glass walls, doors, and windows which surround it mean it is reflected at differing heights, angles, and intensity on all sides. Everything changes as the light of day and seasons do.

Made in two halves, held within metal frames, it represents the process of the acquisition and transfer of knowledge, in a depiction wonderfully specific to the university, from the motto of the Association, floreat sodalitas ruat res, and the serpent of Aesculapius, to the hint of the barber-surgeon’s pole. Ribbons of colours stream through the piece, sometimes cutting straight diagonals, sometimes swirling, and they don’t only bring movement and vivid beauty.

Their colours also represent the various flags of the 97 nations represented in the university. Political significance aside, flags themselves can often be visually unappealing, and rather literal: here, the colours of the flags are delicately represented. You will spot a little Irish tricolor and a gentle curve of shamrock.

The work is packed with layers of meaning and references, but there’s no fun in Easter eggs if you’re alerted to them, so you’ll just have to hunt them out without clues, and ponder the importance of the hibiscus flower, and the significance of the dates tucked out of sight. All these elements were worked out through a process documented in pages of exploratory sketches George Walsh made along the way. While the shape and composition clearly changed, it’s also possible to trace the constants: the fusion of two parts coming together to make a whole, the transition from darkness into the light of knowledge, the serpent. Initially the tree of knowledge was a key element, at another point it was a more abstract piece, eventually it came into its current form. It’s a huge amount of work, which Walsh says was made enjoyable by the ease of communication, the exchange of ideas, the good humour and the trust that characterised the relationship between him and Browne.

“We get on like a house on fire,” he says of Browne. “So it was great working together, and that makes a huge difference.” Browne agrees that the relationship was key to getting the concept fully developed. “George has such a wealth of experience, and his guidance was so important. We outlined what we wanted, but he put it all together and came up with the final piece, which was in the end so much more than we had wanted. I wouldn’t change an ounce of it, not an ounce.”

LEFT Guests at the unveiling of Floreat. BELOW LEFT Dr Maura Briscoe, President, Association of Medical and Dental Graduates, RCSI, artist George Walsh, Amanda Browne and Aíne Gibbons, Director of Development and Alumni Relations, RCSI. BELOW RIGHT George Walsh with Floreat.

Once the design was completed and agreed, Walsh drew the whole thing out at life size and began cutting the glass elements. Meanwhile, Brian Byrne, himself a sculptor at Church Art Metals, made the metal frame and he fitted it in situ. French, English, and German glass is manufactured in colour, so the artist selects from a huge range, and then may add some colour themselves.

Walsh explains how in this instance the additions were a black oxide for detail, and a small amount of yellow stain, brushed on and fired. “With the pieces of glass laid out on the light table, you can assess whether you need more firing, or readjusting. It’s reasonably simple.” This seems entirely improbable, but Walsh points out that it’s been the same technique for over a hundred years.

How does the technique differ from what his father taught him, and from what Harry Clarke taught his father?

“Very little, in terms of manufacture. Clarke’s work is so detailed, and it’s been painted and acided [which is like etching, removing the top layer of colour]. The more modern style is similar, painted the same way, but instead of having lead around it, it’s laminated on the glass with a resin, which gives it a lighter, more contemporary look than leading, which immediately dates it. But it really hasn’t changed much.” Layering glass in appliqué enables the artist to build up differing depths across the piece, and a striking element of this commission is the use of projecting pieces. As you move around, these act like tiny coloured windows, through which you glimpse the changed colour of another piece. The profile is low, meaning the glass is sturdy, minimising the risk of damage should someone investigate it too energetically.

Ecclesiastical stained glass is usually seen at a distance, and high up, but it is quite different to experience a piece at such close quarters. The glass in churches can often be dusty and dirty, with colours occluded, and custodians nervous of cleaning it: cathedral windows in France might gather 500 years’ worth of dirt before cleaning and restoration makes them radiant again. The colours now at the centre of 26 York Street won’t deteriorate, they won’t fade or change, but will remain constant over the many lifetimes to come. And the message of the piece will remain constant too. We gain knowledge, we give knowledge back, we bridge the gap between the known and the unknown.

Floreat is literally a brilliant gift. ■

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DOING THE ROUNDS

DOING THE ROUNDS NEWS, APPOINTMENTS AND CAMPUS UPDATES

Prof Deborah McNamara, Vice-President, RCSI, Prof Hannah McGee, Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, RCSI, and Prof Albert Leung, Chair and Foundation Head, School of Dentistry, with colleagues from the Peninsula Dental School, University of Plymouth, UK.

DENTAL SCHOOL NEWS

RCSI has secured a long-term collaborative agreement with Peninsula Dental School (PDS), University of Plymouth. This partnership will support RCSI in delivering a new undergraduate Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) degree programme. This will be the first communitybased undergraduate dentistry degree programme in Ireland.

The new Bachelor of Dental Surgery is a five-year programme that will increase the number of dentists that qualify in Ireland each year. RCSI will welcome the first student intake in September 2025 and will qualify the first cohort of dentists in the summer of 2030.

Recognising the need to increase the number

of dentists in Ireland, in 2022, the government issued a competition for a new undergraduate programme in dentistry through the Higher Education Authority. RCSI emerged successful, with government support to launch a new programme. RCSI has now received regulatory support from the Dental Council to launch the new Bachelor of Dental Surgery degree in Ireland.

RCSI’s modern, comprehensive and bespoke curriculum is designed to equip graduates to deliver excellence in dental care for patients in a primary care setting, improving their oral and general health near where they live. This community-based approachhas particular benefits for people in underprivileged communities who often struggle to access dental care, and provides a holistic and rich learning experience for students.

The new School of Dentistry will build on a heritage of dental education at RCSI and will complement the very successful Faculty of Dentistry, which provides postgraduate and specialist training and assessments to over 1,500 dentists annually, awarding membership and fellowship qualifications.

Professor Albert Leung, newly appointed Professor of Dentistry and Head of the new School of Dentistry, will lead the School to launch the Bachelor of Dental Surgery. Professor Leung served as Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry from 2020-2023. He has achieved

international distinction including the Association for Dental Education in Europe (ADEE) Excellence in Dental Education Mature Career Award – one of the highest international accolades in dental education. He has published widely, and successfully supervised over 100 master’s dissertations as Programme Director of Restorative Dental Practice at University College London Eastman Dental Institute (UCL).

Welcoming Professor Leung’s appointment, Professor Cathal Kelly, Vice Chancellor, RCSI, said: “We look forward to working with the Department of Health and the HSE to contribute to improved oral health in the population. I wish Professor Leung and his colleagues every success as they prepare to launch the new Bachelor of Dental Surgery and look forward to seeing the first cohort of graduates emerge in 2030, ready to practise in the community.”

Professor Leung said: “We have a chronic shortage of dentists, a situation that negatively impacts both oral and general health. RCSI’s new Bachelor of Dental Surgery programme responds to the need to increase access to dental care and builds on our rich heritage in dental education and track record of innovating in response to meet evolving healthcare needs.”

If you’re interested in learning more about opportunities to work at the School of Dentistry, please email schoolofdentistry@rcsi.ie.

Health, wellbeing and sustainable development plan (2023-2027)

A five-year strategic plan will see RCSI enhance human health by meeting the health workforce needs of society, creating the insights and inventions that drive health improvements, and working in partnership with patients and the public in support of better health and wellbeing for all. “By supporting the development of the current and future healthcare workforce and developing research that creates the insights and inventions that drive healthcare improvements,” said Professor Cathal Kelly, Vice Chancellor, RCSI, at the launch of the plan, “we will enhance RCSI’s impact on healthcare and societal wellbeing.” Professor Laura Viani, President, RCSI, added: “We are grateful to the internal and external stakeholders who have contributed to the development of this strategy. Their valuable input and collaboration have enriched our approach and instilled a sense of enthusiasm for what lies ahead.”

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Prof Cathal Kelly, Vice Chancellor, RCSI; Prof Laura Viani, President, RCSI; and Connor Lenihan, President, RCSI Students’ Union, at the launch of RCSI’s new strategic plan.

DOING THE ROUNDS

Prof Debbi Stanistreet, Head of the Department of Public Health and Epidemiology, RCSI.

TEACHING SUSTAINABILITY

RCSI has been ranked the top-performing medical school in Ireland in the Planetary Health Report Card 2024, winning the award for a second year in a row. Part of a global initiative led by the Planetary Health Alliance, an international consortium of organisations committed to addressing global environmental change and its health impacts, the report card assesses the extent to which higher education institutions across the globe are supporting planetary health.

This prestigious recognition reflects the univer sit y ’s commitment to addressing global health challenges and promoting sustainability for a healthier planet. Results are published in an annual Earth Day report, which helps track institutional change over time.

RCSI and other participating institutions were assessed and graded across five key indicators: planetar y health curriculum, interdisciplinary research in health and the environment, community outreach and advocacy, support for student-led initiatives, and campus sustainability. RCSI’s performance across all categories resulted in an overall grade of A-, the highest in Ireland.

Professor Debbi Stanistreet, Head of the Department of Public Health and Epidemiology at the RCSI School of Population Health, said: “Climate change is affecting human health in myriad ways, and it is critical that health sciences students understand the relationship between planetary health and human health. RCSI is showing real leadership by embedding planetary health content throughout our undergraduate medical curriculum.”

SOLAR GAIN IN BAHRAIN

At the Bahrain Smart Cities Summit in March, RCSI Medical University of Bahrain won the Renewable Energy and Sustainability Initiatives Award for its pioneering solar farm project where a total of 4,993 solar

panels were installed over parking spaces on campus.

The solar project is producing 3.664 million kwh of electricity annually, which represents between 60% and 65% of the university’s annual electricity needs. Thanks to this renewable energy source, RCSI Medical University of Bahrain is reducing its carbon footprint by 2,247 metric tonnes per year.

“Our solar farm bolsters the university’s sustainability, both in terms of environmental impact and return on investment,” said Mr Stephen Harrison-Mirfield, Managing Director, RCSI Medical University of Bahrain.

“This award is a source of encouragement for us to continue our journey toward improved sustainability.”

Science of Health and Happiness

Teddy Bear Hospital

RCSI Teddy Bear Hospital

The Centre for Positive Health Sciences at RCSI has launched an updated and enriched version of its acclaimed online course The Science of Health and Happiness. Professor Ciaran O’Boyle, Centre Director, highlighted the importance of the course: “Modern lifestyles can often challenge our wellbeing, so understanding the science behind health and happiness is crucial. This course aims to make the latest research accessible to everyone, providing practical tools for improving personal wellbeing.” To sign up or find out more, see www.rcsi.com.

Unwell and injured teddies gathered for the 10th annual Teddy Bear Hospital at RCSI. Áine Harris, Chairperson of RCSI’s Paediatric Society, said: “On the 10th anniversary of the Teddy Bear Hospital, we’re thrilled to have welcomed a record number of participants this year. It’s so rewarding to see the enthusiasm with which children learn about healthcare and wellbeing. The event serves as a reminder of the positive impact we can have as healthcare professionals in making medical environments less intimidating for children.”

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DOING THE ROUNDS

Professor Laura Viani, President, RCSI, and Professor Noel Williams.

HONORARY FELLOWSHIPS

At a ceremony in December 2023, Professor Noel Williams, the RhoadsHarrington Professor of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania, was awarded Honorary Fellowship of RCSI. Following in his father’s and two uncles’ footsteps, Professor Williams graduated from RCSI in 1981. After internship at the Richmond Hospital and pre-fellowship surgical training in Dublin, he moved to the University of Pennsylvania and Wistar Institute in Philadelphia as a Harrison Research Fellow. He completed registrar, senior registrar, and lecturer posts in Ireland before returning to the University of Pennsylvania in 1994 as Chief Resident.

He was appointed Assistant Professor of Surgery and Attending Surgeon at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in 1997, rapidly rising through the ranks to be named the Rhoads-Harrington Professor of Surgery in 2017.

Professor Williams has served as the Medical Director of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery for Penn Medicine for over 20 years, leading one of the largest academic programmes in the US. At Penn, Professor Williams specialises in minimally invasive surgery, and to date has performed more than 6,500 bariatric procedures. In addition, he serves as the Director of Robotic Surgery and Director of Surgical Simulation at Penn and he is the Director of the Comprehensive American College of Surgeons Accredited Education Institute. As Associate Programme Director for the General Surgery Residency programme, he has placed more than 125 international graduates into surgical internships throughout the US, many of whom are graduates of Irish medical schools, including RCSI.

Pictured (L-R) Prof Cathal Kelly, Vice Chancellor, RCSI; Claire Noonan, OECI Cancer Accreditation Lead, BRCC; Prof Patrick Morris, Medical Director, BRCC; Prof Leonie Young, Scientific Director, BRCC; Prof Clare Faul, Network Director, St Luke’s Radiation Oncology Network; Patrick Clerkin, former Interim Chief Executive, Beaumont Hospital.

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Professor Laura Viani, President of RCSI, congratulated Professor Williams: “Across his career, Professor Williams has demonstrated a commitment to excellence, to progress, and to nurturing the next generation of surgeons.

His many patients have benefited from his expertise, but so too have countless medical students and trainee surgeons who have gone on to practise in health systems across the world.”

Professor Hannah McGee, Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at RCSI and Michael J. Dowling, President and CEO of Northwell Health, were awarded Honorary Fellowships at the 2024 Charter Day Dinner on 9 February. Congratulating them, Professor Laura Viani acknowledged the enormous contribution each of them has made in the pursuit of excellence and innovation.

Professor McGee’s scholarship alone places her among RCSI’s top 20 researchers but perhaps her greatest contribution to health sciences is her commitment to developing RCSI students and junior faculty.

Under Michael J. Dowling’s leadership, Northwell Health, had one of the most advanced, non- Professor Hannah McGee, RCSI Deputy government emergency response Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, systems in the US to the COVID-19 and Michael J. Dowling, President and CEO of Northwell Health. pandemic.

Abraham Colles (1773-1843).

‘Colles at 250’ Heritage Week events in August 2023 paid tribute to a pivotal figure in the history of RCSI, with discussions, tours and innovative online resources remembering a surgeon whose influence on the field of anatomy is still seen worldwide.

Beaumont RCSI Cancer Centre

Beaumont RCSI Cancer Centre (BRCC) an innovative collaboration between Beaumont Hospital, RCSI and St Luke’s Radiation Oncology Network, marked one year of Organisation of European Cancer Institutes (OECI) accreditation in May 2023. The event celebrated the Centre’s progress toward reducing the cancer burden since its accreditation by the OECI, Europe’s accreditation body for standards in cancer research, education and clinical care. Professor Cathal Kelly, Vice Chancellor, RCSI, said: “We recognise that to fight cancer we need to take a collaborative approach and drive cooperation between specialists in research and clinical spheres. The centre provides an extensive range of high-quality diagnostics and care tailored to the individual patient’s needs, and we strive to improve the professional and organisational quality of care and foster a culture of learning to inspire and empower the health workforce of tomorrow.”

DOING THE ROUNDS

Physician Associate Studies graduates Ruth Murphy and Heather Ryan.

Dr Ronan Kelly, Dr Mary McAleese and RCSI President Prof Laura Viani.

Fatma Taqi, Monica Ramakrishnan, Róisín Fay, Desiree D'Souza, Jamie McGuinness and Jelizaveta Cvetkova celebrate becoming doctors at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Science’s conferring ceremony at the Convention Centre, Dublin.

SUMMER AND WINTER CONFERRINGS

RCSI 2023 summer conferring ceremonies began with a new cohort of 330 medical students being officially conferred in a ceremony in the Convention Centre, Dublin. School of Medicine candidates were presented by the Vice Chancellor of RCSI, Professor Cathal Kelly, and conferred by RCSI President, Professor Laura Viani. The degrees were conferred across Honours Degrees of Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery, Bachelor of Obstetrics (MB, BCh, BAO) and LRCP and SI. Summer conferring ceremonies continued with higher degree candidates graduating from the 2023 classes. From the School of Postgraduate Studies, two Master of Science (MSc) by research candidates, six Doctor of Medicine (MD) graduates, two Master of Surgery (MCh) and 24 Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) graduates were conferred in the ceremony at the RCSI’s campus on St Stephen’s Green.

The degree of Master of Science (MSc) Physician Associate Studies was awarded to 11 candidates. The MSc in Physician Associate Studies at RCSI is the only programme of its kind in Ireland.

More than 1,500 health science graduates and three honorary doctorates were also awarded in four ceremonies last November. Professor Cathal Kelly congratulated all those conferred on their success: “Your conferring today is a wonderful celebration of your achievements and a tribute to each and every one of you. In the year when RCSI was named as the world’s number one university for good health and wellbeing under the UN Sustainable Development Goals, it is fitting that we celebrate the success of our outstanding graduates who join RCSI’s community of more than 30,000 alumni working across the world with the shared ambition to lead the world to better health.”

National Science Week

As part of National Science Week 2023 last November, RCSI’s historic Exam Hall was transformed into a crime scene where local school students joined RCSI scientists to solve the case of the missing ceremonial mace.

RCSI used the immersive event as a backdrop to launch RCSI Engage, its new public, patient and community engagement strategy, which sets out the university’s commitment to increasing its involvement and participation with a host of partners locally, nationally and internationally.

Maria Kelly, Head of RCSI Engage, explained how RCSI recognises that enthusiasm for science begins at a young age by introducing participants to fun and innovative experiments: “One of the key goals of our new RCSI Engage Strategy is to build on the collaborations we have with our schools and community partners to raise the aspirations of primary and post-primary students, co-create learning opportunities with a focus on STEMM promotion, and enhance educational attainment.”

The RCSI Engage Strategy will also leverage the expertise and insights of RCSI academics, researchers and clinicians to help inform and engage the public about health and wellbeing. This Prof Laura Viani, President, RCSI, and Prof Cathal Kelly, Vice Chancellor, RCSI, includes building on the university’s long-running RCSI MyHealth with participants at the ‘Cracking Crime public lectures and podcast series aimed at giving people of all ages with Science’ event. access to information on a range of health and wellbeing topics.

A History of RCSI

Every Branch of the Healing Art,

by Dr Ronan Kelly, traces the evolution and impact of RCSI since its foundation in 1784 when a small group of Irish surgeons broke ranks with the Guild of Barber-Surgeons to form the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. This book tells the captivating story of an institution that has been at the very forefront of innovation in training, education and research since 1784, across nearly 250 years of surgical, medical and societal change.

Dr Ronan Kelly said, “RCSI’s story is a gift to a writer – it already pulses with dramatic life.

It’s an extraordinary privilege for me to get to share this story with others now.”

Professor Cathal Kelly, Vice Chancellor, RCSI, paid tribute to Dr Kelly for his meticulous research and extraordinary storytelling and thanked the editorial board, chaired by Dr Maurice Manning, with the support and guidance of Ms Aíne Gibbons, Mr Michael Horgan, Professor Clive Lee and Professor Kevin O’Malley.

Dr Maurice Manning, Chancellor, National University of Ireland, said: “From 19th-century body snatchers to the 1916 Rising, through two pandemics and two world wars, with a vivid cast of characters, and reaching right to the present day, this book is a fast-moving narrative of a great Irish – and, in recent times, global – institution.”

See On Writing a History of RCSI, page 44.

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DOING THE ROUNDS

Advanced Therapeutic Technologies (ATT) students Shaun McElroy, Liorah Smith, Harresh Suntharam, Ella Carr and Mark Conlon celebrate their White Coat Ceremony.

1st place student Rachel Frankle celebrating with friends.

WHITE COAT CEREMONIES

Class of 2024 Results

More than 700 students took part in White Coat Ceremonies in October 2023, with Professor Hannah McGee, Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, welcoming students who were also addressed by Professor Cathal Kelly, Vice Chancellor, Professor Denis Harkin, Head of the Centre for Professionalism in Medicine

and Health Sciences; Professor Clive Lee, Professor of Anatomy; and Professor Celine Marmion, Deputy Dean for Student Engagement. Professor Harkin told the students: “Your white coat is an emblem of the precious trust which is placed in us by both patients and the public, a trust we must earn and protect.”

Athena Swan Award

A RCSI PODCAST Following a successful first season, RCSI’s Centre for Professionalism in Medicine and Health Sciences podcast, Professsionalism Matters, continues, exploring the complex topic of professionalism, which is at the core of the patient-clinician relationship and fundamental for patient safety and the delivery of highest quality healthcare. Professor Denis Harkin, Chair of Professionalism in Medical and Health Sciences at RCSI, says professionalism in medicine and health sciences, and its relationship with public trust and patient safety, is constantly evolving: “New issues and challenges emerge all the time. We hope that this podcast gives clinicians the opportunity to reflect and think through how these issues impact their professional lives.”

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RCSI has successfully retained Athena Swan Bronze accreditation for positive equality practices in higher education.

The award follows an assessment of gender equality across RCSI’s policies, practices and structures, and recognises the university’s commitment to gender equality and, more recently, other equality grounds.

Liz Hughes, Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at RCSI, said: “We are delighted that the panel has recognised our commitment to embedding an equitable culture throughout our institution. We have an ambitious plan to implement over the next four years and look forward to everyone in RCSI playing an active role in that endeavour.”

The final results for over 350 medical students at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences were delivered on Wednesday, 15 May 2024. Continuing a tradition of almost 70 years, the results were read out from the stairs at the RCSI campus at St Stephen’s Green.

Students were present both in person and via livestream to receive their results. The announcement of the results marked the beginning of a series of celebratory events for the Medicine Class of 2024, culminating in the School of Medicine Conferring Ceremony on 6 June.

RCSI ART AWARD 2023

Stephen Murphy has been announced as the winner of the RCSI Art Award 2023 in association with the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) and The Irish Times. The Cork-born artist was awarded the prize for his sculptural work, Newborn (The hardest day of your short life yet). This award is a celebration of the common heritage of RCSI and the RHA and the important link that exists between art and medicine. Stephen will now create an artwork for the RCSI Art Collection. ■

STUDENT LIFE

DANCE INTERVARSITIES RCSI Dance Society competed in the National Intervarsities Dance Competition at DCU and took home four awards: Best Choreography (Contemporary), Best Individual (Irish), Best Choreography (Mixed) and Second Place (Mixed).

ART AND ANATOMY This year 20 MED2 students were introduced to elements of visual arts training relevant to the study and practice of medicine via the new arts-based Student Choice module. This includes a mix of classroom-based learning and off-campus visits to the National Gallery of Ireland and the Royal Hibernian Academy.

INTERNATIONAL FOOD NIGHT RCSI’s Exam Hall was transformed into a food market for the Gourmet Society’s annual event, where the university’s cultural societies presented dishes from their homelands with everything cooked by the students themselves.

Caught On Campus

On and off campus, RCSI undergraduates make the most of student life in Dublin and Bahrain CAMPUS CYCLING RCSI Medical University of Bahrain is dedicated to supporting local communities and charities and contributing to Bahrain’s national health priorities. To support ‘Movember’, the global men’s health awareness campaign, Mr Stephen Harrison-Mirfield, Managing Director, and colleagues cycled 105 kilometres around the campus to raise donations for the Bahrain Cancer Society.

TRAUMA DAY Emergency Society’s flagship event included stations focused on wilderness medicine, plastering, ultrasound, airways, suturing and mass casualty.

STUDENT EXCHANGE PROGRAMME RCSI Medical University of Bahrain students Ashraf Amjed Albishtawi and Ramadan Hani Karrout (photographed with their Dublin Exchange Buddies, Olivia and Shahd), spent a semester at RCSI Dublin as part of the Student Exchange programme. The p rogramme has connected the Dublin and Bahrain campuses since 2012, offering students valuable academic and social opportunities.

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STUDENT LIFE

RESEARCH PAYS OFF Third year Medicine student Munyra Mohamed Hassan enjoyed her first experience of the International Conference for Healthcare and Medical Students (ICHAMS) at RCSI. Her project, titled ‘Adolescent-Onset Schizophrenia: Proteomic Investigations in Patient Derived Stem Cells’, originated with her involvement in RCSI’s annual Research Summer School, one of several student programmes that receive support from our generous alumni community.

GLOBAL VILLAGE RCSI’s diverse student body was a cause for celebration at the first ever Global Village event, organised by the Students’ Union, with performances, games, cultural booths, a wide range of food and a fashion show led by the university’s cultural societies.

WEEKEND IN PARIS The annual rugby match between RCSI and San Antoine, UPMC, Sorbonne Université was even more special this year, as RCSI fielded its first women’s team! Regrettably both the men’s and women’s teams experienced defeat, but taking part in this longstanding fixture remains a highlight for participating students.

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MATCH DAY In both Dublin and Bahrain, students celebrated their successful applications to the 2024 US and Canadian Residency Match programmes.

BASKETBALL IN BAHRAIN With a team that includes more than five different nationalities, RCSI Medical University of Bahrain Men’s basketball team have been enjoying some success, currently fifth in the local amateur league, PBBL. The team attracts a good crowd to their games on campus, while matches are also streamed live on Facebook: 25,000 tuned in to watch the team’s debut game.

STUDENT LIFE

CONSILIO MANUQUE RCSI President Laura Viani with Parisa Wooton, who received a Consilio Manuque Scholarship in recognition of her academic achievements at this year’s ceremony. The annual Consilio Manuque Awards celebrate the academic, sporting and professional success of RCSI students.

DANCE OFF Students enjoyed an unforgettable night complete with fantastic performances at the Cirque-du-Soleil-themed College Ball, organised by the Students’ Union, at Dublin Royal Convention Centre.

CLIMBING CLUB Climbing Club were lucky with the weather, enjoying spectacular views on the day they hiked around picturesque Lough Ouler in County Wicklow.

LIGHTING UP Students, staff and their families came together for the annual Tree Lighting event at RCSI Medical University of Bahrain, organised by the Student Services team. All attendees enjoyed a festive evening with hot drinks, arts and crafts and a special appearance from Santa Claus!

BAHRAIN NATIONAL DAY Staff and students gathered to celebrate Bahrain’s 52nd National Day, with a delicious Bahraini breakfast, cooking stations, activities and lots of traditional treats.

SHERLOCK CUP This year’s annual Sherlock Cup challenge between current RCSI students and a graduates team resulted in a victory for the alumni side, following their defeat in 2023.

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STUDENT SOCIETIES

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STRENGTH IN NUMBERS RCSI’s flourishing societies encourage fun and friendship, and enrich personal and professional development. Alumni share their stories

D

uring Freshers’ Fortnight, as brand new RCSI students file into 26 York Street, each is invited to join up to 52 societies, a number that has grown over a decade from a very healthy 29.

The goal of a student society is to enrich student experience, foster cultural exchange, and build valuable skills beyond the academic curriculum. As well as offering opportunities for personal growth, friendship and fun, being a member of a society is often the first step towards creating a valuable post-graduation network of professional contacts.

In her first year at RCSI, DR SIMRAAJ POWAR-MINHAS (Medicine, Class of 2018), an Ontario-based GP with a special interest in dermatology, eagerly signed up for multiple societies that aligned with her interests, and then became involved in several: “I attended meetings and events to gauge their activities and purpose. Over time, I gravitated towards roles where I could contribute effectively,” she says. Powar-Minhas’ commitment to RCSI societies reflects the adage, “Ask a busy person” – the dizzying schedule that ensued would

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3 floor anyone other than a high-achieving, highly organised and hardworking student. As Paediatric Society Co-President, she organised annual Teddy Bear Hospital events and peer-led tutorials on paediatric clinical skills to prepare students for exams. As Red Cross Society Treasurer, she was responsible for managing all monetary donations, transactions, and balancing the budget.

As Student Association Vice-President and Academic Advisor, she shared with younger students the skills they required to achieve their potential in an international programme, through academic support and guidance. She also became Orthopaedic Society Public Relations Officer and found time to write a monthly column for RCSI’s DiveRCSIty newspaper, while participating in the activities of at least five other social and cultural societies.

There was plenty of fun, too, and outlets for talents such as dancing and singing, says Powar-Minhas, providing a much-needed balance to the rigours of medical education, offering avenues for stress relief and socialising, which, she says, were crucial for maintaining wellbeing during her time at RCSI. “I was Dance Society Vice-President and, as I am of Punjabi background, a member of PIBS’ [Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka Society] Dance Team, and a

STUDENT SOCIETIES

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7 member of Music Soc, singing and playing the piano. The friendships forged within these associations endured after graduation, and became a valuable professional network and a source of support.”

The flourishing of student societies at RCSI, from the career-focused to the cultural, is viewed as a hugely positive development by RCSI faculty and staff and is wholeheartedly supported. There is a dedicated Societies Coordinator in the Student Services Office and a smart Student Life HQ online hub, a useful tool for students to keep track of the activities of so many societies, with a very useful real-time calendar of events so students can see what is happening today, tomorrow and for weeks to come. In one week in March, there were 26 activities or events planned, including one day with no fewer than nine events.

Why so many societies? “It’s reflective of the student body,” says Jackie Knowles, RCSI Societies Coordinator at the Student Services Office. “Students at RCSI are over-achievers, they are career-focused, and they thrive on having their hands in a lot of pots! Sometimes a society is founded because students want to develop a professional interest in a certain field. Others might develop a society which shares and promotes their culture.” (The Canadian Irish Medical Society, for instance, hosts an annual Canadian Thanksgiving Potluck, which gathers a strong Canadian community and helps alleviate homesickness.)

1. and 2. Members of the Middle Eastern Student Association. 3. A gathering of the Canadian-Irish Medical Student Association. 4. 5. and 6. Members of the Music Society, including Dr Simraaj Powar-Minhas, perform.

7. An Emergency Society educational session at RCSI SIM.

Jackie continues: “Students come to us with a proposal for a society, we consider if there is a gap, we allocate a budget, then students get to work on a committee and a constitution. Committees pour their hearts and souls into their societies to cater to the needs of their membership. In the process, they develop skills like communication, teamwork and project management, in an atmosphere of respect, collaboration, scholarship and innovation.”

Career-focused, professional societies, such as the Association of Women Surgeons (AWS), draw keynote and panel speakers for their events from the alumni body, providing students with a unique opportunity to meet leaders in the fields in which they may want to eventually work. Cultural societies are hugely important. With more than 100 countries represented among the student body at RCSI, students can gather with others from their special place on the globe, manage homesickness and celebrate traditions from home.

Performing arts societies are all about building confidence – to act, dance, sing, play an instrument. Taking up a role on a committee and working at events helps develop and hone a student’s organisational and leadership skills, easing them out of their comfort zone and generally making them a more rounded individual, a very important goal of a modern medical education.

Powar-Minhas agrees: “The increasing emphasis on holistic development and

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STUDENT SOCIETIES

well-roundedness in medical education has likely contributed to the rise in the number of active associations. Medical schools recognise the importance of nurturing qualities such as leadership, cultural competence, and teamwork alongside clinical skills. Students are encouraged to engage in extracurricular activities that cater to these facets of personal and professional development. Membership of these societies not only enhances our CVs but also facilitates personal growth and community engagement.”

Since joining the Board of Irish College Societies (BICS) a national organisation whose role is to provide a national forum, information resource and support mechanism for societies in Ireland’s Universities, Colleges and Institutes of Education, RCSI has brought home 13 BICS National Awards.

“Being part of BICS, which promotes the sharing of ideas and the implementation of best practices,” says Knowles, 8 “has elevated the standard of our societies in line with other universities like UCC, University of Galway, UL, Maynooth and more, which contributes to an improved student experience for RCSI students. Our successes at the BICS will put us on the map at RCSI, in addition to the many other prestigious awards that the university receives every year.”

DR WED AL ATTAS (Medicine, Class of 2020), an Emergency Medicine Core Specialist Trainee in the Mater in Dublin, was President of the Middle Eastern Student Association (MESA): “Our association focused on entertainment, bringing students together, introducing diverse middle eastern cultures, providing comfort for students. I remember students joining committees of a cultural society that was different to theirs. A lot of growth comes from engaging with different cultures, especially in an open environment where each person can bring a new perspective to things and collaborate. We held amazing events and created fun performances. But we also had goals to delve deeper: we hosted a successful panel discussion regarding the stigma of mental health illness in the Middle East and we made the society a safe place for Middle Eastern students to share concerns, whether educational or psychosocial.

“MESA was a means to channel my creativity, and to socialise with a variety of students, which made college more memorable. Being a part of a society taught me about myself and the kind of team member I am, my leadership style – all of which is useful to me today. Not to mention the friends I made to whom I am still close and probably wouldn’t have met otherwise!

“There is a sense of belonging when you’re involved in a society. It allows students to not only make friends but to get a chance to bond with others over subjects they all enjoy. It also stimulates innovation and creativity and opens students to areas of interest they might not have considered before.

Seeing successful societies encourages students to develop other societies.

And Student Societies services at RCSI were approachable and encouraging, which plays a huge role in the success of a society.”

DR SUZANNE MURPHY (Medicine, Class of 2020), who is in her first year of the StAR MD programme looking at novel therapies for the treatment of glioblastoma, and working part-time in Temple Street as a neurosurgery registrar, founded the RCSI chapter of the AWS. She had attended an AWS meeting when the American chapter visited RCSI, and was envious of the association’s medical school chapters in the US. “I looked to see if there was anything similar in Ireland and when I found there wasn’t, decided to start one myself, dragging all my friends with me! I was

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10 extremely lucky to have amazing support from RCSI from the get-go, particularly from Professor Deborah McNamara who became our association President.

Although I started the group, it would not have been so successful were it not for the wonderful committee of people I had around me including two of my best friends, Dr Laura Staunton and Dr Katie Nolan (both Medicine, Class of 2020).

“We didn’t want to compete with hugely successful, well-established organisations like SurgSoc. Instead we wanted to be a ‘safe space’ where all students, regardless of how they identified, could come and learn about being a surgeon. We wanted to promote surgery with a positive focus on why you can and should consider it as a career. We had literally hundreds of students sign up.

“At the end of our first year, we received the Best New Society Award.

Professor McNamara won the AWS Olga Jonasson Distinguished Member Award in 2019. I was delighted to win the Patricia Numann Medical Student Award in 2020 for starting the chapter. I was also thrilled that we were able to

STUDENT SOCIETIES 12

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14 hold the first ever European student AWS conference in 2020, with Professor Averil Mansfield as our keynote speaker. The association was a big motivation for me to keep moving forward and working towards my goals, as I saw all these fantastic women out there doing what I wanted to do. I met paediatric neurosurgeon Ms Taffy Mandiwanza when she graciously attended our speed mentoring event. I am lucky now to work alongside her in Temple Street.

“We are in the process of setting up a graduate chapter of the AWS in Ireland and we hope we can replicate the success of the student organisation on a national scale. When we started planning the graduate chapter, we reached out to some of the original members and found them as enthusiastic and supportive as ever.

“I think the increase in societies is down to the increased awareness of how important it is for doctors, and therefore medical students, to be well-rounded individuals. Medical school is hard but it is also one of the best times of your life.

Student societies allow you to try new things, meet new people and really find your tribe. Joining a society can be intimidating: there is that feeling when you walk into a room that all the other people already know each other, but taking that first step forward is so worth it – the payoff is just huge.”

DR HAROLD LEE (Medicine, Class of 2023), a FY1 doctor in the NHS in the UK, puts the rise of active societies over the past decade down to the openness of the university to providing opportunities for students to promote what they enjoy. He was President of the Southeast and East Asia Society (SEASOC) while at RCSI. It was the only Asian society at RCSI at the time, though many more have since been founded.

8. Members of the Health & Wellbeing Society at its Womxn’s Wellness Symposium. 9. The Emergency Society wins a BICS award in 2023. 10. Dr Suzanne Murphy at the first-ever committee meeting of the Association of Women Surgeons RCSI student chapter. 11. and 12. Members of the Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka Society. 13. and 14. Members of the Paediatric Society visit children in hospital; Dr Simraaj Powar-Minhas and colleagues get ready for the biggest ever Teddy Bear Hospital event, in 2023.

As a growth mindset is behind everything that happens at RCSI, expansion was on the cards: “Initially, the society was the Penang Medical Council Society, specifically for Malaysian students who completed junior medical years in Ireland and senior medical years in Penang. I joined the society in my first year at RCSI and had the idea of expanding PMCS into an Asian cultural society, in line with CIMSA [Canadian-Irish Medical Student’s Association] PIBS [Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka Society] and CAS [Caribbean/ African Society], to promote Asian culture within RCSI and encourage cultural exchange with societies within or outside RCSI. In short, the aim was to provide a platform for Asian students to widen our circles. The society was renamed SEASOC. Over the years, we organised all sorts of initiatives and events including International Food Night and cultural activities. For Asian students far from home, the society provided the chance to celebrate Asian festivals. In 2019-2020, we held the greatest number of events of all RCSI societies, and were nominated one of the top three societies of the year (we ended up coming second).

“SEASOC was a great platform for getting to know people and I remain close to some of my committee members. Student societies are meaningful, not only during your college years but also in the years after you leave.”

Dr Powar-Minhas concurs: “Student societies are integral to the medical school experience. They offer avenues for personal growth, cultural exchange, and community engagement, enriching the educational journey and shaping well-rounded healthcare professionals.” ■

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BOSTON MARATHON

Boston Marathon 2014

The finish line Corriena Brien

Boston Marathon 2010. Front row, left to right: Rory Farnan, Dr John V. Coyle, Deirdre Coyle and Corriena Brien.

Boston Marathon 2017

IN THE LONG RUN

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RCSI has a 25-year long association with the annual Boston Marathon, thanks to the commitment of one of our distinguished alumni, Dr John V. Coyle

irst held in 1897, the Boston Marathon is the oldest marathon and one of the best-known running events in the world, attracting both professional and amateur athletes.

The marathon always takes place on Patriots’ Day, the third Monday in April, and attracts 30,000 participants.

Although it’s notoriously difficult for even elite runners to secure a spot, thanks to the generosity of John V. Coyle MD (Medicine, Class of 1962), each year since 1999 a number of students from the university have secured waivers to participate.

Dr Coyle – or Vinny as he is better known – has spent his career in Boston, initially practising internal medicine and later working in the insurance

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industry, while maintaining close ties with the university. In 2002 he was honoured with the Distinguished Graduate Award.

Boston Marathon 2011

The marathon is organised by a non-profit group, the Boston Athletic Association, and it is in his capacity as member of the Board of Governors and former President from 2002-2004, that Dr Coyle has been able to secure the coveted waivers.

Dr Coyle first offered six waivers to Barry O’Brien, then Director of Estate and Support Services at RCSI, back in 1999.

“Barry came out with the students that first year and each one of them finished and we had no dropouts, so we decided to make it an annual event,” remembers Dr Coyle.

As part of their trip, ten RCSI students not only get to run in the race but also – thanks to Dr Coyle’s connections – to experience the best Boston has to offer. In the past, groups have met the Mayor of

BOSTON MARATHON

1. Boston Marathon 2011.

2. The 2009 team with Dr Vinny Coyle and Corriena Brien. 3. Sami Termanini, Hannah Smith and Lisa Torres with Dr Vinny Coyle in 2008.

4. Boston Marathon 2014.

5. Lisa Torres, Rory Farnan, Michael Galvin, Avril Copeland, Sami Termanini, Hannah Smith, Sarah McIsaac, Torin Glass and Michelle O’Brien in 2008.

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3 Boston, been invited to receptions at the Copley Square Hotel, had their names announced over the tannoy as they watched the Red Sox play in Fenway Park, met former marathon legends such as Dick and Rick Hoyt as well as meeting race icons including Meb Keflezighi, Bobbi Gibb, Kathrine Switzer and Jack Fultz.

“The marathon is,” says Dr Coyle, “one of the highlights of my year and I look forward to meeting each new group of RCSI runners. And I am so proud of them – they represent RCSI so well and are great ambassadors for the university.”

Dr Brian Dougherty (Medicine, Class of 2009) a family physician and Flight Surgeon, US Navy, who ran in 2006, recalls the opportunity to represent the school at a world-class sporting event as the highlight of his time at RCSI. “The thing I remember most is Dr Coyle’s warm hospitality,” says Dr Dougherty, “he is such a gracious host and made the RCSI students not only feel welcomed but as if they were the main event.”

Corriena Brien, Head of Student Services at RCSI, and Emily O’Brien, Operations Manager, Student Services, have accompanied the student group to Boston for many years. Having both run the marathon themselves, Corriena in 2011 and Emily in 2014, they are well placed to support the students. They both say that participating in the race was one of the best experiences of their lives.

“It is,” says Corriena, “one of the fastest marathons in the world and pretty gruelling, so the selection process for the RCSI students who

4 want to participate is arduous. We find there is a real correlation between healthcare studies and running, as both require a huge amount of selfdiscipline and determination over a long distance.

Each year, the demand for places becomes more and more competitive. Students need to have previous marathon experience, and those that get through are all extremely good and fast runners.”

Dr Hannah Makrides (Medicine, Class of 2008) an emergency staff specialist at the Royal Hobart Hospital in Tasmania, ran in 2006, 2007 and 2008 and remembers training runs in Phoenix Park with “Butlers coffee, chocolate and an Avoca scone” afterwards, as the reward.

While RCSI covers the costs of flights and accommodation for the students, they in turn raise funds for charity. Over the past 25 years, RCSI runners have raised money for charities including Breast Cancer Ireland and Floating Doctors, a non-profit medical relief team established by RCSI alumni Dr Ben La Brot (Medicine, Class of 2006) and Dr Ryan McCormick (Medicine, Class of 2014).

The RCSI contingent always travels to Boston on the Friday before the race on the Monday in order to give the runners time to acclimatise.

“There’s a great atmosphere on the flight,” explains Emily, “as almost everyone on it is a runner. On Saturday morning, we get them registered, and collect their bib numbers and runners’ packs. That evening there is a charity function. As it’s term time, the students study on Sunday; some of them even have exams to

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■ DR JOHN NORIAN Medicine, Class of 2002, Fertility Specialist, Reproductive Endocrinologist, Pasadena, California. Ran in 2001.“I wish I had learned more Irish pub songs beforehand so that I could have sung along with the alumni at the social events.”

■ MR JAMES HEPBURN Medicine, Class of 2006, Orthopaedic Surgeon, Cork.

Ran in 2003. “I was nervous before the start and delighted and exhausted at the finish.”

■ DR JORGEN ANDVIG Medicine, Class of 2008, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon, Molde Hospital, Norway. Ran in 2005. “I remember the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream shop just down the block from our hotel had free ice cream all day the next day. The weather was lovely and we just hung out and ate all we could.”

■ DR PAUL DHILLON Medicine, Class of 2009, Brigade Surgeon, 39 CBG, Canadian Armed Forces, Sechelt, British Columbia. Ran in 2006 and 2009. “I remember having a beer with teammates, in the bathtub filled with ice, to recover after the race. It was an amazing experience and I’ve since gone on to complete almost 40 marathons.”

■ DR RORY FARNAN Medicine, Class of 2010, Consultant Cardiologist, Essentia Health, Fargo, North Dakota. Ran in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

“I remember running the Dublin Marathon in preparation and being nervous ahead of my first trip to Boston that I might not finish. My quads were so sore at the finish line.”

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BOSTON MARATHON Clockwise from top left: 6. Team Maguire: Sinéad (Class of 2010) and her father, Paul (Class of 1983). 7. Boston Marathon 2012.

8. Boston Marathon 2014.

9. Boston Marathon 2015.

10. Ben Melvin, Dick Hoyt and Gordon Treacy.

11. Boston Marathon 2017.

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do online while they are in Boston. This year one of them had to get up at 4am the morning after the race to sit one! Final year students will have exams to sit as soon as they get back to Dublin, so Tuesday is another study day, and we travel home on Wednesday.”

On the day of the race, the RCSI group leaves the hotel early and heads to Boston Common.

“It’s one of the most spectacular sights you’ll ever see,” says Emily, “with hundreds of yellow school buses waiting to take the runners to the starting line in Hopkinton, about an hour away.”

The vagaries of the weather in Boston, where it can go from winter to spring overnight, always have a major impact on the experience of those participating.

“Our runners have experienced everything from frost and ice to torrential rain to sun splitting the stones and everything in between,” says Corriena.

In Hopkinton, the runners wait in corrals until it’s their time to start. The route takes them through the suburbs to the finish line on Boylston Street in the city. Once the runners have boarded their buses, Emily and Corriena meet Dr Coyle at the Boston Athletic Association breakfast, and start to track the RCSI runners as they set off. They are always there waiting for them at the finish line, cheering them on with a huge tricolour.

Dr Shamini Kirupananthan (Medicine, Class of 2006) a staff obstetrician and gynecologist in Springfield, Massachusetts ran in 2005. What she remembers most is the camaraderie with her fellow runners, and being proud to represent RCSI. “It was my first time in Boston and the energy and buzz about the place was electric,” she says.

“The race itself was quite surreal; it was challenging and I wasn’t sure I’d finish. Afterwards I celebrated with the other runners, singing songs, being very present in the moment.”

This year, temperatures of 16-19°C, which caused even the elite athletes to slow down, made it a tough

8 race for all the runners, as there is no shade on the route. “But they all finished and we are so proud of them and all they achieve, studying demanding programmes and running a tough race,” says Emily.

“Dr Coyle is so proud of them in their smart RCSI uniforms; everyone in Boston knows them as Vinny’s doctors.”

Dr Hannah Makrides recalls being swept along by the electric atmosphere and the support of the crowd, the relief, excitement and joy of crossing the finish line, and hobbling back to the hotel in the freezing rain in 2008, being passed by a pedestrian with a Zimmer frame.

“Some of our runners achieve pretty fast times,” says Corriena. “We had one student finish in two hours 44 minutes, which is not that much slower than the elite runners who might finish in two hours 20 or 30 minutes. Others take a little longer.”

Every year, the first RCSI student across the finishing line is awarded a trophy – this year it went to Adam O’Neill, a third-year pharmacy student, who completed the race in three hours 37 minutes.

A board in 123 St Stephen’s Green’ records the names of the students who have run since 1999.

Dr Coyle and all the students who have participated over the years share many memories, from students achieving a personal best, to the father-and-daughter Team Maguire, Paul (Medicine, Class of 1983) and Sinéad (Medicine, Class of 2010) who ran together in 2014, to the challenges presented by the explosion of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland in 2010, which caused havoc in the skies.

BOSTON MARATHON

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“Though the RCSI runners made it out on the last flight to depart Dublin airport on the Friday prior to the race, their return flight was cancelled,” recalls Corriena. “As the group included three final year medical students who were due to sit an exam at the end of the week, the academic team in Dublin came to the rescue and liaised with their counterparts in Harvard Medical School who agreed to host the exam should we fail to make it back to Dublin on time.

Much to the disappointment of the students in question they did in fact make it back.”

One year that stands out is 2013, for the very worst of reasons. Bombs planted at the finish line and on Boylston Street claimed three lives and injured hundreds of spectators, with more innocent lives lost in the hunt for the perpetrators.

“What started out as a beautiful Boston Marathon day turned to chaos and carnage,” remembers Corriena. “The lives of those lost will forever be remembered, along with those

Clockwise from top left: 12. Boston Marathon 2018. 13. Boston Marathon 2016.

14. Boston Marathon 2012. 15. Boston Marathon 2015: Eoin Murphy, recipient of the John V. Coyle Perpetual Trophy, with Jack Fultz, 1976 Boston Marathon winner, and Dr Vinny Coyle. 16. Boston Marathon 2014. 17. Boston Marathon 2015.

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who suffered life-altering injuries. We were very fortunate that none of RCSI’s runners were in the area when the bombs went off.”

Dr Coyle himself was in the grandstand with his wife, children and grandchildren when the first bomb exploded. His daughter, Deirdre Coyle, remembers her father – at 80 years old – leaping over the barriers and starting to triage people.

“There was one woman in a serious condition who my father treated and I believe he saved her life. Needless to say, they continue to be in touch.”

Over a decade later, Boston continues to demonstrate the resilience that saw the marathon run the year after the bombing, with President Barack Obama present.

“One of the most special things about the Boston Marathon is the community spirit,” says Emily. “All the way along the route there are people two and three deep cheering on the runners, there’s an amazing atmosphere. And since the bombing, the level of community engagement has grown even stronger.” ■

14 ■ MS SINÉAD O’MALLEY Pharmacy, Class of 2010, Co Meath. Ran in 2009. “It was such craic! No one took themselves or the running too seriously (even though there were some cracking times posted!). As soon as we landed in Boston, it was clear we were about to be part of something really special and we were treated like VIPs.” ■ DR RICHARD FARNAN Pharmacy, Class of 2014, Cardiology SHO, Galway. Ran in 2012.

“I was the only pharmacy student among a team of medical students. We all gelled very well as a group. I forged long term friendships from that trip. I remember great camaraderie and celebrations afterwards with Dr John V. Coyle.”

■ DR RUTH CAREY Medicine, Class of 2018, Paediatric Specialist Registrar, CHI, Temple Street, Dublin. Ran in 2016. “Meeting Dr Coyle at the Boston Athletic Association event was such an honour – he has been so generous to RCSI students for many years. The last mile or so flies, with all the cheering from the crowds, and people shouting your name. Crossing the line itself is almost a blur after that hype.” ■ DR SAMUEL ADAMS Medicine, Class of 2022, SHO, Wales.

Ran in 2022. “Boston was the best experience of medical school for me. The last mile, when I heard the bells ringing and the crowd roaring, I felt euphoric. My legs were very tired and felt like they could stop working. The pride of wearing our RCSI blazers and going out for a celebratory dinner with my teammates will stay with me forever.” ■ DR EIMEAR BOURKE Medicine, Class of 2023, Intern doctor, Dublin. Ran in 2022.

“I felt very privileged and lucky to be there.”

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Research Studies For Better Health

From treatments for multiple myeloma, sepsis and bone infections, to lung conditions and spine fractures, 10 RCSI research projects are helping lead the world to better health

2 Professor Siobhán Glavey and Professor Tríona Ní Chonghaile

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Treatment for multiple myeloma

RCSI research, published in Haematologica, has found that venetoclax, a medication currently approved for leukaemia, has benefits for patients with multiple myeloma when used in combination with another drug. This discovery offers a new avenue of treatment options for the currently incurable disease.

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a type of blood cancer that is newly diagnosed in around 400 people in Ireland each year. The search for innovative treatment strategies is crucial, particularly for patients whose cancer is resistant to standard care.

Although previously tested in MM, venetoclax, which blocks the function of a protein called BCL-2, was only found to be effective for a small proportion of patients. The researchers discovered that combining venetoclax with a drug called 5-azacytidine significantly increased its effectiveness, indicating a broader potential patient population that could be treated with the new combination.

“This shows the benefits of re-evaluating existing treatments in new contexts to expand their potential,” said Professor Tríona Ní Chonghaile, Associate Professor, Department of Physiology and Medical Physics and research lead, alongside Lyndsey Flanagan, first author. Professor Siobhán Glavey, Chair, RCSI Department of Pathology and Clinician Scientist, Beaumont RCSI Cancer Centre says they will now test for efficacy and safety in a clinical trial setting to get closer to offering a new treatment strategy for patients.

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The impact of lockdowns on newborns

Lockdowns imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on the gut microbiome development of babies born during these periods, according to new research from RCSI and collaborators.

Professor Jonathan Hourihane, Head of the Department of Paediatrics at RCSI and Consultant Paediatrician at Children’s Health Ireland Temple Street, who is joint senior author, commented on the implications of the research: “This study offers a new perspective on the impact of social isolation in early life on the gut microbiome. Notably, the lower allergy rates among newborns during the lockdown could highlight the impact of lifestyle and environmental factors, such as frequent antibiotic use, on the rise of allergic diseases. We hope to re-examine these children when they are five years old to see if there are longer-term impacts of these interesting changes in early gut microbiome.”

Professor Liam O’Mahony, Principal Investigator at APC Microbiome Ireland and Professor of Immunology at UCC, is joint senior author of the study, published in Allergy: “While we all start life sterile, communities of beneficial microbes that inhabit our gut develop over the first years of life. We took the opportunity to study microbiome development in infants raised during the early COVID-19 era when strict social distancing restrictions were in place, as the complexity of early life exposures was reduced and this facilitated a more accurate identification of the key early-life exposures.

Prior to this study it has been difficult to fully determine the relative contribution of these mu lt iple e nv i r on m e nt a l exposures and dietary factors on early-life microbiome development.”

RESEARCH

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Weight loss & diabetes

Researchers in the School of Population Health at RCSI have provided new evidence of the health benefits of weight-loss efforts that lead to diabetes remission for type 2 diabetes patients.

While previous trials have shown that substantial weight loss using diet and lifestyle can reverse type 2 diabetes, the new research shows that reversal of diabetes in turn affects cardiovascular and kidney disease outcomes.

Published in Diabetologia, the study, called Look AHEAD (Action for Health in Diabetes), monitored over 5,000 patients during a period of 12 years. The magnitude of risk reduction was greatest for participants with evidence of at least four years of remission.

For participants in the weight-loss trial who were able to achieve remission, i.e. reduce the need for medications and reduce their HbA1c levels (a measure of blood sugar control), the research found there was a 40% lower rate of cardiovascular disease and 33% lower rate of chronic kidney disease in this group.

Professor Edward Gregg, Head of the RCSI School of Population Health, pointed out that lessons learned from this study can help inform diabetes treatment methods and improve quality of life for people with type 2 diabetes. “It has highlighted the significance of weight loss for achieving remission from type 2 diabetes and long-term positive cardiovascular and kidney disease outcomes,” said Professor Gregg.

Professor Edward Gregg

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Dr Joanna Sadowska and Professor Fergal O’Brien

Reducing bacterial infection and speeding up bone healing Researchers at the RCSI Tissue Engineering Research Group (TERG) and SFI Advanced Materials and Bioengineering Research Centre (AMBER) have developed a new surgical implant that has the potential to transform the treatment of complex bone infections, detailed in a paper in the journal Advanced Materials.

When a bone is infected, the priority is to treat it quickly. Standard clinical treatment, including several weeks with antibiotics and often removal of the infected portion of bone tissue, can be slow. Around half of bone infections are caused by MRSA, which is resistant to antibiotics, and prolonged antibiotic treatment pushes up the risk of infections becoming tolerant to the treatments we have at our disposal, making infections harder to control.

To help treat such patients, researchers at RCSI created a material from a substance that is similar to our bones. The scaffold-like structure of this material means that when it is implanted onto injured or diseased bone, it encourages the bone to regrow.

RCSI researchers infused the scaffold with tiny nanoparticles of copper, which are known to kill the bacterium that causes most bone infections. They also incorporated a specific g e n e t i c m o l e c u l e, a n i n h i b i t o r o f microRNA-138, into the scaffold to stimulate the formation of new bone at the site where the material is implanted. Preclinical lab tests

showed the implanted scaffolds with the copper nanoparticles and microRNA could stimulate bone regrowth in a fortnight, and that the scaffold stopped 80% of potentially harmful bacteria from attaching to the site.

They also saw that the implants stimulated a good blood supply to cells on the scaffold, which is crucial for the health and viability of the newly formed bone.

“We combined the power of antimicrobial implants and gene therapies, leading to a holistic system which repairs bone and prevents infection,” says first author of the study Dr Joanna Sadowska, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the RCSI TERG. Profes s or of Bioe ngineer ing and Regenerative Medicine at RCSI, Professor Fergal O’Brien, principal investigator on the paper and Head of TERG, sees many potential benefits to the implant. “The nature of the implant also means that the body can naturally break down the material when the bone heals, so there is no need to remove it surgically.”

The novel nature of this research was recognised last year during the annual meeting of the Orthopaedic Research Society in Dallas, Texas, where Dr Sadowska was awarded a New Investigator Recognition Award for outstanding scientific paper. This is one of the most prestigious global international orthopaedic awards for early-career researchers in the musculoskeletal field.

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RESEARCH

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Dr Ciara Murphy

Regenerative treatment for osteoporotic fractures

Dr Ciara Murphy, Lecturer at RCSI Depa r t ment of A natomy a nd Regenerative Medicine and RCSI Tissue Engineering Research Group has received a €2m Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) to develop a regenerative stenting technology that will revolutionise the treatment of vertebral fractures in osteoporotic patients.

Dr Murphy said: “I am thrilled and privileged to receive an ERC Consolidator Grant to develop a technology that will provide a safe and reparative treatment strategy for patients suffering from osteoporotic vertebral fractures, a common and debilitating condition. I envision a future whereby it is possible to restore the structural and mechanical health to the spine, allowing patients to live a normal and healthy life.”

Vertebral fractures in the spine are the most common complication of osteoporosis, occurring due to damaged and weakened bone structure. Current treatment involves injecting bone cement into fractured vertebrae to support the spine, but this often leads to further fractures and high mortality rates.

Fusing cut t ing-edge ma nufacturing techniques and 3D printing with nanotherapeutics, this project will develop a minimally-invasive dual component platform – a biodegradable stent to support fractured vertebrae during healing, and an injectable nano-therapeutic biomaterial targeting damaged bone to drive regeneration and repair.

The new project – RESTORE (REgenerative STenting for Osteoporotic vertebral fracture REpair) will run for five years, starting in June 2024.

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A new treatment for sepsis

Professor Steve Kerrigan from the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences at RCSI has been named winner of the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Commercialisation Award 2023. The SFI Commercialisation Award recognises an entrepreneurial or innovation leadership achievement that has resulted in a significant and demonstrable commercial impact and celebrates the entrepreneurial motivation, attitude, and skill required in translating publicly funded research to market.

The award recognises Professor Kerrigan’s contribution as a founder of Inthelia Therapeutics, an RCSI spin-out clinical-stage pharmaceutical company that aims to develop personalised therapeutic approaches to treat patients with sepsis.

Sepsis is the leading cause of death worldwide, causing over 11 million deaths globally per year, and there is currently no drug available to treat the condition. “Through Inthelia Therapeutics, I am proud to lead the advancement of an innovative biomarkerguided, host-targeted therapy towards late-stage clinical trials in early sepsis. I hope the work of Inthelia will ultimately make a significant impact on the treatment and Professor Fergal O’Brien, Professor Steve Kerrigan, RCSI School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences; outcomes for sepsis,” said and Professor Peter Clinch, Chairman of SFI. Professor Kerrigan.

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Therapy for lung condition AATD

Boosting levels of a deficient protein has clear survival benefits for people with the genetic condition alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD), according to new research led by RCSI, and published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

People with severe AATD are born with very low levels of a protective protein called alpha-1 antitrypsin, and they can develop serious lung and liver disease.

“We showed that by boosting this protein in people who are Professor Gerry McElvaney born with very little of it, it is possible to protect them against early death caused by lung disease,” said the study’s first author Dr Daniel Fraughen, from the Irish Centre for Genetic Lung Disease, based at RCSI’s Department of Medicine, who worked alongside study co-author Dr Tomás Carroll, a Senior Lecturer at RCSI and Chief Scientist at the patient advocate organisation Alpha-1 Foundation Ireland.

The findings also point to the need for early detection of AATD and to include younger and healthier patients in studies of augmentation therapy, a form of medication not generally available in Ireland, unlike other European countries, notes study senior co-author Professor Gerry McElvaney, RCSI Professor of Medicine. “Future studies of augmentation therapy should recruit younger patients with less severe lung disease,” says Professor McElvaney. “Detecting people with severe AATD as early as possible and intervening before the establishment of lung disease should be the goal to improve survival. This may require newborn screening for AATD.”

RESEARCH

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Professor Gianpiero Cavalleri

Professor Paul McNally with Isaac Byrne, 2, who has cystic fibrosis.

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Understanding cystic fibrosis in young children

A major new study led by RCSI and Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) has

been awarded funding of €5.6m to work with babies and children in Ireland and the UK over the next five years to build a better understanding of cystic fibrosis (CF). Ireland has the highest incidence of CF, an inherited disease that mainly affects the lungs and digestive system, in the world: approximately 1,400 children and adults in Ireland live with the condition and typically more than 30 new cases of CF are diagnosed here each year, usually in the first few weeks of life.

Children born in the 2020s with cystic fibrosis often have more treatment options and potentially better outcomes than those born with the disease in previous decades but there is still much to understand about cystic fibrosis in babies and children in this new era of care.

The ENHANCE study – Establishing Natural History in an Advanced New CF Care Era – will be carried out at 13 paediatric CF clinic sites in Ireland and the UK. RCSI’s Professor Paul McNally, Associate Professor of Paediatrics at RCSI and Consultant in Respiratory Medicine at Children’s Health Ireland, will lead ENHANCE with Jane Davies, a consultant in paediatric respiratory medicine at Royal Brompton Hospital, part of Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.

“We want to ensure we are concentrating on the things that are most relevant to children with CF and their parents in this new era. Parents of children with CF will help us to ensure that we stay focused on our goals.”

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New insights on epilepsy

The largest genetic study of its kind, coordinated by the International League Against Epilepsy, including scientists from FutureNeuro at RCSI, has discovered specific changes in DNA that increase the risk of developing epilepsy. Epilepsy, a common brain disorder of which there are many different types, is known to have genetic components and sometimes runs in families. In this new study, researchers compared the DNA from diverse groups of almost 30,000 people with epilepsy to the DNA of 52,500 people without epilepsy. Researchers identified 26 distinct areas in DNA that appear to be linked to epilepsy, including 19 that are specific to a particular form of epilepsy called Genetic Generalised Epilepsy (GGE). They were also able to point to 29 genes that are probably contributing to epilepsy within these DNA regions.

“Gaining a better understanding of the genetic underpinnings of epilepsy is key to developing new therapeutic options, and consequently a better quality of life for the over 50 million people globally living with epilepsy,” said Professor Gianpiero Cavalleri, Professor of Human Genetics at RCSI School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Science and Deputy Director SFI FutureNeuro Research Centre.

Hazardous health risks from flavoured vapes

New RCSI research has uncovered the potentially harmful substances that are produced when e-liquids in vaping devices are heated for inhalation. The research team in RCSI’s Department of Chemistry used artificial intelligence (AI) to simulate the effects of heating e-liquid flavour chemicals found in nicotine vapes. They included all 180 known e-liquid flavour chemicals, predicting the new compounds formed when these substances are heated within a vaping device immediately prior to inhalation. The analysis revealed the formation of many hazardous chemicals including 127 that are classified as ‘acute toxic’, 153 as ‘health hazards’ and 225 as ‘irritants’.

These included a group of chemicals called volatile carbonyls (VCs), which are known to pose health risks. Sources for VCs were predicted to be the most popular fruit, candy and dessert-flavoured products. Lead author Professor Donal O’Shea, Professor of Chemistry, said the findings are very concerning: “We wanted to understand, before it’s too late, the likely impact flavoured vapes are having on the health of the growing number of vapers. It is plausible that we are on the cusp of a new wave of chronic diseases that will emerge 15 to 20 years from now due to these exposures.” ■

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HISTORY OF RCSI

STORIES AND BACKSTORIES

E

On Writing A History of RCSI

Dr Ronan Kelly describes his approach to writing the history of RCSI

very story has its backstory, and every book has its own biography. While RCSI’s story begins in 1784 (and if you didn’t know that before, I can recommend a book on the subject), its backstory variously takes in the medieval Guild of Barber Surgeons and even, before that, the theories of Galen and the teachings of Vesalius. But the history of RCSI is not the subject of this article; what follows here is something else: it is the backstory – the biography – of my history of RCSI. I called that book Every Branch of the Healing Art, and its story technically begins in October 2019, when I was invited to meet Professor Cathal Kelly, RCSI Vice Chancellor, in his office to discuss ‘a project’. But before that meeting, before the official narrative begins, there was another kind of backstory – in fact, there were two of them, and in classic biographical fashion, both concern parents.

The Paternal Branch

First, there’s my dad’s story. His name is Peter Kelly and through most of the 1990s he was part of the RCSI Estates team, or Building Services as it was known then. My father loved his time working in RCSI, loved the vibrancy and diversity of the place, and he often told me of the eccentric antics perpetrated by both staff and students. In 1997, when I began a Masters in English Literature at Trinity and I needed extra cash, he suggested I send my CV to RCSI’s Librarian, Beatrice Doran. Soon enough, I was coming in to RCSI with Dad

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at some ungodly early hour (to beat the traffic, he said), so that I could gather up books scattered by students the night before and put them back on the shelves. I kept this up as my Masters became a PhD, when I also graduated to manning the Issue Desk in the late evenings.

Life, and postdoctoral research, took me away from Dublin – first to New York, then to York (or as I called it, Old York). By the time I came back, I’d written a book, a biography of the poet and songwriter Thomas Moore, which came out in 2008. I knew I wanted to keep writing, and I knew too that I wanted to return to library work. While working in bookshops by day, I retrained by night with a distance-learning Diploma in Information Studies from the University of Aberystwyth. When the economic crash happened, I got recessioned out of my first library job. I worried about my decisions – especially the promising academic career I had more or less thrown away – but a short time later, while walking down Fade Street one Culture Night, I ran into Carol Creavin from RCSI Library and she suggested I send in my CV. That was the best part of 15 years ago, and I’ve been part of the library team ever since.

The Maternal Connection

Unbeknownst to me, there were thoughts at this time among RCSI senior management about a new history of the college, as the last one was written by Professor J.D.H. Widdess in 1949 with only minor revisions in the years since.

All they needed was a writer to do it. This is where the story of my mother, Sarah, comes in. Very sadly, in the early 2000s, Mum developed dementia and

HISTORY OF RCSI

How to Write a Book in Two Easy Steps!

Dr Ronan Kelly

she was cared for – magnificently, heroically, tirelessly – by my father for many years; eventually, though, a nursing home was needed, and in that nursing home, Mum found herself sharing a dining table with a charming couple, Jack and Elizabeth Lee. When their son visited, it turned out he already knew Dad. He was Clive Lee, RCSI’s Professor of Anatomy.

“So what do you do?” Professor Lee asked me one day.

“I work in RCSI Library,” I said.

Normally, that would be enough of an answer for anyone. But not Clive. “Yes, but what else do you do?” he asked.

“Oh. Well, I write …”

What happened next was very unusual. Not the fact that Clive and I swapped books, but the fact that he actually went and read mine, after which he came to me with a proposal: “Would you be interested in writing a new history of RCSI?” I thought about this for a while, then told him: “No, but thanks for thinking of me.”

Privately I thought it would be a mammoth task, one that it would engulf the life of anyone who dared to take it on. (In this I was not wrong.) But in addition to his encyclopedic anatomical knowledge, Professor Lee has another singular talent: he can gently talk a person off a ledge, or equally gently convince them to walk the plank, without them knowing which is which. And this is how I found myself in Professor Kelly’s office some months later saying yes to the ‘project’.

Some scholars have a field of expertise. Mine is more garden-sized, given that the subject of my first book, Thomas Moore, was born in Aungier Street, a stone’s throw from RCSI. That project wasn’t just useful for local lore, but because it taught me the key lessons in how to write a book, which are as follows: first, advance the work, even incrementally, every day, and second, try not to consider the bigger picture for very long because it will only make you freak out.

I also learned that books are made from various things – not least blood, sweat and tears – but chiefly from other books (and, of course, essays and articles and reports and newspapers and websites). Before lockdown, I hauled shelf-loads of books home with me (they’re back now, library colleagues!), and in the depths of the pandemic I went online for digitised historical documents like Colles’ Descriptive Catalogue of Preparations in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (thank you, Wellcome Collection!). Whenever I was stuck, all I had to do was read more. I always had a pen in my hand to make notes on everything; I filled about 800 pages of spiralbound A4 notebooks this way. Perhaps higher-tech methods work for some, but I find that information stays in my brain much more securely if there’s a Biro involved.

Once RCSI researchers were allowed back on site, I spent weeks and months on end in the Heritage Collections Reading Room, poring over decades of handwritten Council Minutes and other RCSI muniments that exist nowhere else. (And OMG, the handwriting: it was a good day for my eyes when, in 1963, someone finally bought a typewriter.) For much of that time, as I foraged for primary material, the only people in the entire building were the security guard on the ground floor and me on the top floor, and morning and evening we’d have nice, socially distanced chats.

Facts are all very well, but they don’t make a story, so once I’d gathered my notes, I set about mapping a narrative, working out what themes and details should follow each other to keep a reader interested. When I look back on these maps now, they don’t make a lot of sense, but I can still feel the intensity with which I made them. Joining of all those dots to create a flowing narrative was probably the most difficult aspect of making the book; it’s also, as a consequence, the aspect I’m probably most proud of. The great irony, of course, is that if I did it well, all that stitching and unstitching should be largely invisible to the reader (at least until now, I suppose).

The Supporting Cast

I was not alone in the making of the book. To guide me, Professor Kelly assembled a formidable Editorial Board chaired by Dr Maurice Manning, NUI Chancellor and author of multiple books including an acknowledged modern classic, The Blueshirts. Providing insights into RCSI’s last 50 years were two former Registrars, Professor Kevin O’Malley and Michael Horgan. Whenever there is a question of what belongs or doesn’t belong in a book, the answer is best found by considering who the book is for – and no one knew that better than Aíne Gibbons, Head of Development & Alumni Relations. The fifth Board member was Professor Lee (who clearly had a lot to answer for!). The six of us met for the first time on Wednesday, 11 March 2020. I remember it clearly because we all wondered aloud about whether we should be shaking hands or not; the very next day, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar announced the closure of all schools, colleges and childcare facilities. As a group, the Editorial Board did not meet again in person until 6 October 2022. The book thus became my pandemic project, and my one joke on the subject – which I hereby use for the last time – was that it saved me from making a whole lot of banana bread.

Research involved reading essays, articles, reports, newspapers and websites, before mapping a narrative.

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HISTORY OF RCSI

Prof Cathal Kelly, Dr Mary McAleese, the author, RCSI President Prof Laura Viani and Dr Maurice Manning.

Photographing art and artefacts for inclusion.

Judging a Cover by its Book

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. My book weighs in at just over 130,000 words, but it also has more than 300 full-colour images, many of which take up entire pages. So by a certain metric, it’s more of a picture-book than anything else. (Indeed, if you are really pressed for time, the eight images I chose to open each chapter represent the most basic elements of the RCSI story.) But from the start – from the initial conversation with Professor Kelly – I knew that the finished book had to be visually striking.

As I worked on each chapter, I made a wish list of associated images and, for the most part, my brilliant colleagues Susan Leyden and Jessica Handy were able to supply these from our in-house collections. Other images came from outside institutions, such as the National Library of Ireland, Dublin City Library and Archive, Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI) and Wellcome Collection. In other instances again, new photography was required. A very talented photographer, Patrick Bolger, spent some days with us and set up a makeshift studio in the Board Room; he came to the Heritage Collections Reading Room and did the same. He also suggested things I would never have thought of and – even better – he steered me away from my own bad ideas by saying, simply, “It won’t look good.”

That, to me, is an ideal collaboration.

Thinking of images is one thing, taking photos another, but laying them out in a stylish fashion is another skill entirely, and our graphic designer on the book, Fiachra McCarthy, is one of the best in the business. Early on, he walked through the college with me, absorbing the vibe and suggesting themes, and later he and I had multiple Zoom conversations (he’s based in Kerry) about ‘look and feel’. When I asked for red page numbers and red superscript for the endnotes, he found the perfect shade, font and size that worked (and were not, as he put it, “like someone dripped blood on the page”). He cropped and zoomed (and occasionally ‘warmed’) images; he added colour pages behind some images, watermarks under others. And he designed a suite of potential covers, all with their distinct merits. For a long time, the front-runner was the stained-glass crest from the Colles Room; it was classic, it spoke of tradition, it

46

Mary A. Kelly's painting, 'I make these promises solemnly, freely and upon my honour', which became the cover of the book.

was rich in symbology. But something wasn’t quite right. I had written a book with a beginning, middle and end, but the subject was different: yes, RCSI has a beginning, and conceptually at least, a middle; but it has no end in sight, not by a long shot. We wanted the cover to tell that story too, and so, late on, I suggested Mary A. Kelly’s painting, inspired by the White Coat Ceremony.

Representing both the (future) clinician and the patient, the chairs she depicts are not just pointed forward – like the institution – but also slightly angled towards one another – that is, in conversation. Just as the patient is at the centre of all that we do in RCSI, the College’s history is itself an ongoing conversation.

The End and the Beginning

After three and a half years on the project, I finally hit ‘send’ on the final document on 3 October 2023. While my partner and I spent a few days decompressing in Genoa (I wanted to see the hotel where Daniel O’Connell died, and to visit Constance Wilde’s grave; I’m that kind of fun on holiday!), the printers took over, and the first physical copies arrived in to RCSI a month later, on 2 November. That was a very special moment. There they were in a corner of the Council Room, heavy boxes full of everything that I’d been carrying in my head for so long – every find, every phrase, every picture, every punctuation mark, every decision about what to cut and what to keep. I took one book from the box and flipped through it, not breathing very well, and found it was everything I’d hoped for – and more. When I got home, I popped it on the shelf. All weekend, its bright red-and-white spine – Fiachra’s great idea, recalling the barber-surgeons’ poles – caught my eye and made me grin from ear to ear. The book was finished, the story was told.

Or was it? There was the launch, of course, a few days later, by Dr Mary McAleese, a magnificent occasion I will remember forever (and then there was The Swan afterwards, an occasion I could only dimly recall the next morning – again, Professor Lee has a lot to answer for). That surely represents the end of the story? But actually no, it’s quite the opposite: my role in putting together the history of RCSI may be at an end, but the part that really matters, in the long run, is just beginning: I gave this book my all, I poured my heart and soul into it – but only readers now can make it come alive.

■ Every Branch of the Healing Art, Eastwood Books, €40, is in good bookshops and online at www.wordwellbooks.com and www.easons.com.

CLASS CALL

CLASS CALL

At RCSI, we love to hear about your career achievements and your life after university.

Find out what some of your classmates have been doing

1950s

■ DR AL MUTCHNIK (RCSI DUBLIN, MEDICINE, 1953) There was cause for happy celebration for Dr Al Mutchnik on the occasion of his 100th birthday – pictured here with his wife Beverly and Professor Cathal Kelly, Vice Chancellor, RCSI, who presented him with a letter from the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins.

1960s

■ DR JOE JOHNSTON (RCSI DUBLIN, MEDICINE, 1962), DR ORLA JOHNSTON (RCSI DUBLIN, MEDICINE, 1990) AND DR JACK O’GRADY (RCSI DUBLIN, MEDICINE, 2023) It was a very special occasion when three generations of RCSI graduates came together to mark the conferring of Dr Jack O’Grady, photographed alongside his mother Dr Orla Johnston and his grandfather Dr Joe Johnston.

1990s

■ DR ASHWIN MAHARAJ (RCSI DUBLIN, MEDICINE,1991) and fellow graduates of the Class of 1991 enjoyed a reunion in Thailand, organised by local classmates Suki and Caroline and attended by H.E. Mr Patrick Bourne, Ambassador of Ireland to Thailand, and his wife Sonali.

■ DR KHALED ABUHLAIQA (RCSI DUBLIN, MEDICINE,1998), DR LAMEES ABUHLAIQA (RCSI DUBLIN, MEDICINE, 2002), DR RANYA ABUHLAIQA (RCSI DUBLIN, MEDICINE, 2006) and DR MOHAMMED ABUHLAIQA (RCSI DUBLIN, MEDICINE, 2007) Four out of five sibling graduates of RCSI Dublin gathered for a conference in Abu Dhabi. Dr Khaled Abuhlaiqa is a consultant neuro-opthalmologist; Dr Lamees Abuhlaiqa is a public health expert; Dr Ranya Abuhlaiqa is a consultant paediatric endocrinologist and Dr Mohammed Abuhlaiqa is a consultant haematologist. Their youngest brother, Dr Husain Abuhlaiqa (RCSI Dublin, Medicine, 2016) is an ENT final year resident.

2000s

■ DR HANI MALIK (RCSI DUBLIN, MEDICINE, 2008) dropped into RCSI on a trip back to Dublin and enjoyed a visit to the ‘Close to the Bone’ exhibition, by photographer Caroline Seymour. ■ DR PAUL DHILLON (RCSI DUBLIN, MEDICINE, 2009), DR HARI HULLUR (RCSI BAHRAIN, MEDICINE, 2016) and DR GAGANDEEP ARORA (RCSI DUBLIN, MEDICINE, 2019) There was a chance meeting in the ER at Sechelt Hospital, BC, Canada for three RCSI graduates.

2010s

■ DR SHAZIA SAMANANI (RCSI DUBLIN, MEDICINE, 2015) completed her internal medicine training in the US followed by fellowships in geriatrics and academic general internal medicine. Following a Masters in Medical Education,

Prof Cathal Kelly, Dr Al Mutchnik and Beverly Mutchnik

Dr Ashwin Maharaj and members of the Class of 1991

Dr Hani Malik and Caroline Seymour

Dr Orla Johnston, Dr Jack O’Grady and Dr Joe Johnston

Dr Lamees and siblings – Dr Khaled, Dr Ranya and Dr Mohammed Abuhlaiqa

Dr Hari Hullur, Dr Gagandeep Arora and Dr Paul Dhillon

she is now working as Associate Program Director & Director of Inpatient Medical Education for George Washington University’s Internal Medicine Residency Programme. On a personal note, she is also planning her upcoming wedding which will be in Italy this summer. ■ DR FATEMA ALMUTAIRI (RCSI DUBLIN, MEDICINE, 2015) and DR ABDULLAH ALENEZI (RCSI DUBLIN, MEDICINE, 2016) made a happy return to the Dublin campus with their family and caught up on all things old and new. ■ DR AMAL DAWOOD (RCSI BAHRAIN, MEDICINE, 2010) has been appointed Vice President of the Bahraini Family Medicine Physicians Association. Dr Dawood is currently a family physician and Chief of Production, Research and Studies in the Health Promotion Directorate at the Ministry of Health. ■ DR MAJID ALTUNAIJI (RCSI BAHRAIN, MEDICINE, 2011) is a paediatric pulmonologist and sleep physician at Tawam Hospital in Abu Dhabi. Dr Altunaiji completed his paediatric residency at Tawam Hospital, where he was a Chief Resident and graduated with commendations from the Global Clinical Scholars Research Training programme at Harvard Medical School, with a partial scholarship from Dubai Harvard Foundation for Medical Research. Dr Altunaiji then went on to pursue a fellowship in paediatric pulmonology at the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary. ■ DR MOHAMED ALMUQAMAM (RCSI

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CLASS CALL

BAHRAIN, MEDICINE, 2014) completed his foundation training in Malta, before moving to the US to complete a paediatrics residency in New York, followed by a fellowship in critical care medicine in Philadelphia. Dr Almuqamam is American Board-certified in Paediatrics and Critical Care Medicine, and works as a consultant paediatric intensivist at Danat Al Emarat Hospital for Women and Children (DAEH) in Abu Dhabi and is Assistant Professor of Paediatrics at Khalifa University. He was recently appointed Designated Institutional Officer overseeing residency and internship programmes in DAEH. ■ MR MOHAMED RESTAM (RCSI BAHRAIN, NURSING AND MIDWIFERY, 2015) and MR FAHAD ALTAILASAN (RCSI BAHRAIN, NURSING AND MIDWIFERY, 2017) were recipients of the 2023 MSc Nursing Scholarship. Launched in 2021, the Scholarship is offered exclusively to alumni of RCSI Medical University Bahrain’s undergraduate nursing programme, with the aim of recognising and rewarding the significant contributions of alumni to the healthcare sector.

French Residency Programme

RCSI BAHRAIN 2023 Inspiring Excellence winners

2024 Intern Award Recipient

Congratulations to two RCSI Medical University of Bahrain graduates of 2023 – Dr Heba Alkoheji, Intern at Bahrain Defence Force, Royal Medical Services (BDFRMS), Military Hospital and Dr Ammar Alalawi, Intern at Salmaniya Medical Complex (SMC) – who are joint winners of the 2023 Intern Award.

2020s

■ DR HEBA ALKOHEJI and DR ISA ALSHAMSAN (BOTH RCSI BAHRAIN, MEDICINE, 2023) Dr Alkoheji and Dr Alshamsan were celebrated as the first graduates to have completed their education with the support of AlMabarrah Al Khalifia Foundation, a non-profit organisation which aims to empower Bahraini young people and provide them with opportunities to make a global social impact.

Dr Shazia Samanani

Dr Abdullah Alenezi and Dr Fatema Almutairi

Dr Amal Dawood

Dr Majud Altunaiji

Dr Mohamed Almuqamam

Mr Mohamed Restam

Mr Fahad Altailasan

Dr Heba Alkoheji and Dr Isa Alshamsan

Alumni in France: French Residency

Congratulations to DR MOHAMMED FAQI (RCSI BAHRAIN, MEDICINE, 2012), DR SALMAN HASAN (RCSI BAHRAIN, MEDICINE, 2016) and DR NOORA SULAIBEEKH (RCSI BAHRAIN, MEDICINE, 2018) who were awarded DELF B2 French language diplomas by H.E. Mr Eric GiraudTelme, French Ambassador to the Kingdom of Bahrain. They are currently undertaking specialised residency training in France.

2023 Inspiring Excellence Award Winners

DR TALAL HILAL (RCSI BAHRAIN, MEDICINE, 2012), CAPTAIN (DR) FARES UDDIN (RCSI BAHRAIN, MEDICINE, 2013), and AYSHA ALBUARKI (RCSI BAHRAIN, NURSING AND MIDWIFERY, 2010) were announced as the recipients of the 2023 Inspiring Excellence Awards by Professor Alfred Nicholson, RCSI Medical University of Bahrain Vice President for Academic Affairs and Head of School of Medicine, and Professor Kathryn Strachan, Head of School of Nursing and Midwifery.

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Dr Ali Abdulnabi

Dr Zainab Toorani

Hawra Saeed

Dr Bassam Alhamer

Dr Tharmegan Tharmaratnam

Dr Nazha Alfaraj

Alumni Ambassador Programme

Launched as a pilot project for the 2023-2024 academic year, the RCSI Medical University of Bahrain Alumni Ambassador Programme aims to create a wide network of engagement with alumni locally and internationally, and is focused on the five top graduate destination countries – Bahrain, the UK, the USA, Kuwait and Canada.

■ UK ALUMNI AMBASSADOR: DR ALI ABDULNABI (RCSI BAHRAIN, MEDICINE, 2013) is a CRUK Clinical Research Fellow at King’s College London and Honorary Specialist Registrar at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital. ■ BAHRAIN ALUMNI AMBASSADOR (MEDICINE): DR ZAINAB TOORANI (RCSI BAHRAIN, MEDICINE, 2016) is Anatomical Pathologist/Haematopathology at Salmaniya Medical Complex. ■ BAHRAIN ALUMNI AMBASSADOR (NURSING): MS HAWRA SAEED (RCSI BAHRAIN, NURSING AND MIDWIFERY, 2020) is a Teaching and Research Assistant at the University of Bahrain College of Health and Sports Sciences, Nursing Department. ■ USA ALUMNI AMBASSADOR: DR BASSAM ALHAMER (RCSI BAHRAIN, MEDICINE, 2020) is an internal medicine resident at Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia. ■ CANADA ALUMNI AMBASSADOR: DR THARMEGAN THARMARATNAM (RCSI BAHRAIN, MEDICINE, 2021) is a family medicine resident at St Paul’s Hospital, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

■ KUWAIT ALUMNI AMBASSADOR: DR NAZHA ALFARAJ (RCSI BAHRAIN, MEDICINE, 2022) is an obstetrics and gynaecology resident training in hospitals under the Ministry of Health in Kuwait.

EVENTS

CELEBRATING OCCASIONS AT RCSI ALUMNI GATHERING

In August 2023, RCSI welcomed more than 520 alumni and guests from all over the world for the 2023 Alumni Gathering at St Stephen’s Green. It was the largest ever Gathering apart from the exceptional bumper event in 2022 which catered for all years who had missed their reunions due to COVID-19.

Dr Nilofer Farjo and Dr Bessam Farjo (Class of 1988)

Dr Saad Habba (Class of 1978) and Janan Habba

Prof Caroline de Costa (Class of 1973) receiving her Distinguished Graduate Award

Gala Dinner, The Mansion House

Dr Margaret Fearon (Class of 1982) and members of the Class of 1983 – Dr Blair Fearon, Dr Siobhan Gogan, Dr Paul Maguire, Dr Micheál Bourke, Dr Cathy Casey and Dr Christine Canty

Dr Michael O’Rahilly (Class of 1963) and Fran O’Rahilly

Dr Karima Ali (Class of 1998) and Dr Khan Ali (Class of 1993)

Dr Maura Briscoe (Class of 1978, President of the Association of Medical and Dental Graduates, RCSI) with graduates of the Class of 2013 – Dr Mark Schwindt, Dr Scott Donald, Dr Alan Nguyen and Mr Art Malone

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EVENTS

Dr Patrick O’Connor, Dr Cathy Casey and Dr James O’Connell (Class of 1983)

Mr Lars Nolke (Class of 1993) and Norma Nolke

Graduates of the Class of 1973 – Professor Caroline de Costa, Dr Sashi Sehmi and Dr John Kuhlmann

Graduates from the Class of 1987 – Dr Erika Keane, Dr Daniel Briscoe and Nava Briscoe

RCSI student volunteers Julia Matwiejczuk, Suaad Alshleh and Amir Bachari

50

Dr John Sheehan and Dr Catherine Ling (Class of 1998)

Dr Paras Bajaj (Class of 2018), Dr Lorne Hurst (Class of 1988) and Dr Tony Hussain (Class of 1968)

Dr Richard Fahy (Class of 1968) and Angelique Fahy with Dr Andrew Rynne (Class of 1968) and Ramona Valentine

EVENTS

ANNUAL DINNER OF THE ASSOCIATION OF MEDICAL AND DENTAL GRADUATES, RCSI

The Association of Medical and Dental Graduates, RCSI welcomed 112 attendees to its Annual Reception and Dinner in the College Hall and Boardroom on 25 November 2023. A special moment was the presentation of the Distinguished Graduate Award, awarded posthumously to world-renowned epidemiologist Dr Muireann Brennan (Class of 1985), and accepted on the night by Muireann’s niece, Ailbhe Ní Chonceannáin.

Dr Maura Briscoe, President of the Association, and Ailbhe Ní Chonceannáin, who accepted the Distinguished Graduate Award on behalf of her aunt, the late Dr Muireann Brennan.

Jenny Reilly and Dr Patrick Troy (Class of 1986)

Graduates of the Classes of 1998 and 1999 Dermot O’Connell, Dr Denise Curtin (Class of 1973) and Tim Carpenter

Dr Illona Duffy (Class of 1993), Dr Dearbhla Duffy (Class of 1994) and Philippa Buckley

Janet Walsh and George Walsh with Professor Mayilone Arumugasamy (Class of 1993) and Ms Amanda Browne (Class of 1994)

BOSTON ALUMNI RECEPTION

The first international alumni event since 2019 took place in October 2023, when graduates gathered in Boston at a reception hosted by Professor Cathal Kelly and enjoyed an evening of reconnecting and reminiscing.

Dr Alan Nguyen (Class of 2013), Dr Leena Rahmat (Class of 2008) and Dr Ian Hutchinson (Class of 2007)

Mr Ali Basil Ali (Class of 2021), Dr Ole-Petter Hamnvik (Class of 2005) and Dr Rajni Tanden (Class of 2006)

Dr Clare Tempany-Afdhal (Class of 1981), Dr David Knight (Class of 1981) and Professor Camilla Carroll (Class of 1985)

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EVENTS

LONDON ALUMNI RECEPTION

In March 2024, alumni, Fellows and Members enjoyed an evening reception at the Royal Society of Medicine.

Dr Houriya Kazim (Class of 1988)

Dr Firas Younis (Class of 1994) and Dr Bessam Farjo (Class of 1988)

Dr Suzanne Heffernan and Dr Dermot O’Hara (both Class of 1981)

Ms Norma Gibbons (FRCSI), Ms Anna Walsh (FRCSI) and Ms Eva Bolton (FRCSI)

Dr Karina Moran (Class of 1980) and Dr Colm Quinn (Class of 1979)

Dr Brian Lynch (Class of 1986), Dr Dermot Lynch (Class of 1953) and Professor Cathal Kelly (Class of 1985), Vice Chancellor, RCSI

Dr Fionn Chen (Class of 2015), Dr Haider Cheema (Class of 2015) and Dr Panicos Shangaris (Class of 2005)

Professor Cathal Kelly addressing alumni and guests

Dr Máire Lynch (Class of 1984), Dr James McCarthy (Class of 1984), Dr Dermot Lynch (Class of 1953) and Dr Brian Lynch (Class of 1986)

Dr Firas Younis (Class of 1994), Mr Owen Owens (Class of 1980), Dr Karina Moran (Class of 1980) and Ms Máire Owens

CLASSMATES IN CONVERSATION

February 2024 saw the launch of Classmates in Conversation, a brand-new video and podcast series in which classmates swap career experiences, personal stories and, of course, their own memories of their time in RCSI. Season One is available to enjoy on Spotify and YouTube and features three episodes – Dr Helen Towers with Dr Harald Sunde (Class of 1983); Dr Maura Briscoe with Dr John Latham (Class of 1978); and Dr Tracy Cunningham with Dr Frank Kelly (Class of 1988).

Dr Frank Kelly with Dr Tracy Cunningham (Class of 1988)

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Dr Maura Briscoe with Dr John Latham (Class of 1978)

Dr Helen Towers with Dr Harald Sunde (Class of 1983)

EVENTS

LUNCHTIME HISTORY TALK

VICE CHANCELLOR’S OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

In March 2024, the first of a series of lunchtime talks in the Albert Lecture Theatre on the history of RCSI took place between Dr Ronan Kelly, Heritage Research and Outreach Officer, RCSI Library and Brian Crowley, Collections Curator, Kilmainham Gaol Museum. Around 50 RCSI alumni, staff and faculty attended. members

The first RCSI Alumni Lunchtime History Talk of 2024

In December 2023, the late Professor Douglas Veale, (Class of 1984), was presented with the Vice Chancellor’s Outstanding Achievement Award, in recognition of his pioneering achievements in the field of rheumatology, commitment to clinical and research excellence, and dedication to patient care.

Professor Veale was the first recipient of the Vice Chancellor’s Outstanding Achievement Award, which forms part of the suite of Alumni Awards that have been celebrated annually since 2019.

Brian Crowley in conversation with Dr Ronan Kelly Professor Cathal Kelly (Class of 1985), Vice Chancellor, RCSI and Professor Douglas Veale (Class of 1984)

Professor Timothy Lynch (Class of 1984) and Dr John Cooney (Class of 1986)

Dr Kate Coleman (Class of 1985), Dr Margaret Grace (Class of 1984) and Mr Tim Kane

Mr Tim McKane and Dr Horace De Courcy-Wheeler (Class of 1984)

Mr William Grant, (Class of 1984), FRCSI 1989

Professor Kevin O’Malley and Professor Eoin O’Brien (Class of 1963)

RCSI MEDICAL UNIVERSITY OF BAHRAIN

Alumni of RCSI Medical University of Bahrain have enjoyed numerous opportunities to reconnect over the past year, including a special alumni event on campus in March 2023 to mark the Holy Month of Ramadan, followed by a reception in Toronto in April 2023 for graduates based in Canada. The Class of 2023 and the winners of the Inspiring Excellence Awards were celebrated at an event which took place in November 2023, while in January of this year, Dr Ali Abdulnabi (Medicine, Class of 2013) brought alumni together for an event in London. The following month, the Careers & Alumni team travelled to Kuwait to launch the Alumni Ambassador programme and kick off the 20th anniversary celebrations of the university. ■

Toronto Reception

Alumni Ramadan Ghabga

Alumni Ambassadors Programme London Event

Tenth Anniversary Reunion and 2023 Inspiring Excellence Portrait Unveiling Ceremony

Alumni Reception in Kuwait.

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A LIFE’S WORK

A LIFE’S WORK

From Dublin to Baghdad to Chicago: Dr Yvonne M. Curran’s journey to becoming a vascular neurologist, and her work with underserved communities, began at RCSI

O

riginally from Dublin, neurologist Dr Yvonne Curran MD graduated from RCSI in 1988. After her intern year in Beaumont, she worked for six months at Ibn al Bitar hospital in Baghdad before moving to Chicago.

Initially she matched into psychiatry but then switched to neurology. At first she worked in private practice specialising in neurophysiology but now specialises in stroke medicine and is currently Assistant Professor of Vascular Neurology at Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, and Medical Director of the stroke programme, Saint Anthony Hospital, Chicago. Her non-clinical area of interest is physician wellness. Dr Curran gives an account of her life, before and after RCSI: “I grew up in Dublin and lived in Raheny for the first seven years of my life.

My dad, Gene Curran, was a GP there and my mum, Mary, was his practice nurse. We lived over the practice until we moved to Clontarf, where my parents still live. The practice stayed in Raheny. My father didn’t retire until he was well into his seventies.

“During secondary school, I worked as my dad’s secretary for his evening surgeries. The surgery was right beside the church, the Garda station and the bank and, in hindsight, it was more like a social services office. My dad loves to talk and tell stories of how he took care of three generations of families there.

As the GP he was intimately involved in all the stresses of his patients’ lives, not just their medical problems.

“I used to go with my dad on house calls and I loved following him around.

He had a lot of uncles in the bar trade in Dublin, and a lot of publicans were patients, so we often ended up in pubs. From as early as I can remember, the only career I ever thought about was medicine.

“After school at Manor House in Raheny, I went to the Institute of Education on Leeson Street for a year and I started in RCSI in 1982. In some ways I suppose I was better prepared than some of the other students, but in other ways I wasn’t.

Many of my classmates had gone to more prestigious schools such as Blackrock and Gonzaga, and most of the Irish boys were into rugby so even if they hadn’t gone to the same school they knew each other before arriving at Surgeons.

Coming from the northside, I went in there knowing nobody. In that sense, it was a culture shock. But on the first day I met girls who I knew of through my dad, as their fathers were also GPs. Two of them, Orla Donohoe and Helen Daly (both Class of 1988), are my closest friends to this day. I had a small circle of friends back then and was pretty shy and introverted – I’ve changed a lot since!

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A LIFE’S WORK

LEFT RCSI Medicine, Class of 1988 ten-year reunion. BELOW RIGHT Dr Yvonne Curran with her husband, Dr Ken O’Riordan.

BELOW LEFT At the American Irish Medical Summit, RCSI 2022.

“I have very fond memories of Professor David BouchierHayes, sadly no longer with us, who was an amazing mentor and teacher, as were Professor Paddy Broe and Professor Alan Johnson.”

“Pre-med was the hardest year for me. I had never done physics before and we went from zero to A-Level standard over the course of a year. Chemistry wasn’t a strong point for me either. Once we progressed to our preclinical years, studying anatomy, physiology and biochemistry, I felt more comfortable and by the time I got to the clinical years I was flying.

“I have very fond memories of Professor David Bouchier-Hayes, sadly no longer with us, who was an amazing mentor and teacher, as were Professor Paddy Broe and Professor Alan Johnson. I was lucky because my uncle had given me a car so I used to pick up Helen Daly in Killester each morning and drive into St Stephen’s Green; Johnny Car Park always kept a spot for me. He was a real character.

“When I graduated in 1988, I hadn’t decided what specialty I wanted to pursue. I liked everything except obstetrics and gynaecology. I did my intern year in Beaumont. My SHO was Cathal Kelly [Professor Cathal Kelly, RCSI Vice Chancellor] who became a great mentor and friend. He used to make me laugh a lot. He was very perplexed about my wanting to go to America! I still remember him saying in his wonderful Donegal accent, “You know you haven’t made it until you make it in your own hometown!”

“I was coaxed into going to America by my now-husband Ken O’Riordan (Medicine, Class of 1988) who grew up in Foxrock. We met the first week of pre-med and dated on and off until final med when we became serious.

I really hadn’t put much thought into my future; I tended to live day to day back then, but Ken was different. He had done electives in the US and had a career plan. Once we got engaged, I obviously had to go too. He wanted to go to Boston as he had connections there but I had family in Chicago and so we compromised.

“Ken matched to internal medicine in Chicago and started in July 1989.

I didn’t go straight away because I hadn’t passed the United States Medical Licensing Examinations (USMLEs), so instead I went to Ibn al Bitar Hospital in Baghdad for six months. The hospital was run by an Irish management company and most of the physicians and nurses were Irish or European, who provided a very high standard of medical care including transplant and cardiac surgery to the local Iraqi population. We also had a lot of young patients from Kurdistan with aplastic anaemia believed to be from Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons in that region. My time in Iraq provided me with an incredible education from a medical, cultural and global perspective. In hindsight, it helped lay the foundation for many of my future career interests.

In Baghdad, I rotated through haematology and paediatrics, both of which I enjoyed. However, I decided that I would plan a career in psychiatry when I moved to Chicago.

“I matched into psychiatry at Rush-Presbyterian-St Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago in 1991. In the first year of residency, I rotated through medicine and, while most of the medicine residents hated their psychiatry stint, I enjoyed mine. I was a little bit concerned that this could be a bad omen for psychiatry.

In the second year, I rotated through neurology. I had never been exposed to neurology in Dublin and I absolutely fell in love with it.

“I was very fortunate to have my first existential crisis in the presence of Dr Phil Gorelick with whom I worked in neurology. He took me aside on the last day of my rotation and said, “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t seem cut out to be a psychiatrist. Would you have any interest in doing neurology?” He literally read my mind. It was incredible.

“Gradually I came to accept that we were going to make our lives in

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A LIFE’S WORK

“I have watched some of the most talented and caring physicians leave the profession early because of burnout issues...”

the US. It took years. I used to be terribly homesick every time we’d go home. Ken was used to me being down in the dumps after each trip but I remember once returning to Chicago and saying to him, ‘I don’t mind being back’.

“Once we started having our family here, it changed things a lot.

For the longest time I never felt fully Irish or fully American, just in the middle. I felt my identity had to lie with one country or the other, which it doesn’t. And now I’m very happy recognising both as home. When I am in Chicago I say I am going home to Dublin, and in Dublin I say I am going home to Chicago.

“The residency in neurology is three years. And then most people end up doing a fellowship, which I did too. I had my two older children, Enya and Gavin, during training. I wanted to work part-time while my children were small, and private practice was the only option for that so I did a fellowship in electromyography (EMG) or neurophysiology. Ironically, I didn’t really like it. It was just what made you marketable for private practice.

“I always loved stroke or vascular neurology, but it didn’t seem like there was a way for me to practise that at the time. Fellowships were just getting started, as it was a relatively new specialty. So I did five years in private practice in the suburbs of Chicago. And then I was approached by someone I trained with to see whether I’d be interested in coming to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. I moved there in 2001. I was able to take the vascular neurology boards and join the teaching faculty.

“Now I practise mainly stroke neurology, providing in-patient stroke service for between six and eight weeks a year and the rest in the out-patient setting or on our telestroke service.

“In partnership with Northwestern in 2016, I started going to St Anthony’s, a free-standing Catholic hospital on the west side of Chicago which services one of Chicago’s most underprivileged communities. The patient population is mostly Hispanic and Black. These populations have a disproportionately high incidence of stroke compared with the White population. St Anthony’s has since developed into a primary stroke centre. This allows ambulances to bring stroke patients there for acute therapy. If they need a thrombectomy then we arrange for a rapid transfer to Northwestern.

“I really enjoy my work there and I hope that in some small way I am giving back to my city. The contrast in the baseline health of the population there and at Northwestern is striking even though they are only a 15-minute drive from each other. It is unfortunately a typical example of the healthcare inequities that exist across the US. “I also helped found the first free neurology clinic in Chicago, which is a separate not-for-profit clinic. I am one of the attending physicians, and I go there every couple of months to supervise the neurology residents. It serves patients with no insurance and is a very well run not-for-profit organisation.

“I feel the Irish are good at taking care of people less fortunate than ourselves – I certainly feel an obligation to give back. I used to do a lot of medical mission work in Haiti but it’s not safe to go there anymore. I find it very rewarding to be able to give back in my own community.

“My other non-clinical interest is in physician wellness and I completed a

56

Graduation of RCSI Medicine, Class of 1988.

fellowship in this in 2018. Physician burnout produces a large strain on the healthcare systems, both in the US and Europe. This has been a recognised problem for several decades but became an even bigger issue during and since the pandemic. Over the years I have watched some of the most talented and caring physicians leave the profession early because of burnout issues that would be easily rectified if hospital administrators would implement relatively low-cost solutions.

“I feel fortunate that I am currently in a department where we have a focus on wellness and supporting each other during stressful times. This was not always the case and I get my own personal reward by paying this forward.

We have a lot of support and trainees so my working hours are much more civilised than they used to be and we have excellent leadership which ensures people are treated equitably. I feel my quality of life is very good, better than when I had young children and at times was probably close to burnout myself.

“My children, Enya, Gavin and Maya, are now aged 30, 28 and 20. None of them have gone into medicine; they said their parents worked too hard when they were growing up. They are a different generation clearly, perhaps a smarter one with a better sense of work-life balance.

“I am fortunate to live close to my work so my commute is very short.

We always resisted the urge to move to the suburbs and live just north of Chicago city centre near Wrigley Field, the baseball stadium. The children all went to the Lycée Français so they are fluent in French, which makes them a little more European. I also wanted them to be exposed to the diversity of growing up in a big city.

“I feel honoured to have received many rewards and much recognition for my work. I am most proud of the Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award at Northwestern for my work in Haiti. I was able to bring my husband and two older children there to volunteer and it left a lasting impact on us all. I am deeply saddened by what is going on there now and that fact that so many NGOs have had to leave because of safety concerns “I turn 60 this year and I have been thinking about how I want to spend the next decade or so of my career. I hope to continue spending as much time as possible working with Chicago’s underserved communities.

“I am also looking forward to spending more time in Dublin. I was honoured to be invited to give a talk on Physician Wellness at RCSI in August 2022 and I am going to be there again this year to co-chair a session on this important topic.” ■

Scan here to read more about leaving a legacy

OPENING DOORS TO THE FUTURE LEAVE A LEGACY THAT WILL TRANSFORM LIVES By leaving a gift in your will to RCSI you can help shape the future of medicine and patient care 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

Thank you to our Alumni!

Congratulations to our alumni who celebrated class reunions in 2023.

Collectively you....

Raised €139,000

to support Student Programmes at RCSI.

Across 12 reunion classes

1963, 1968, 1973, 1978, 1983, 1988*, 1993, 1998*, 2003*, 2008, 2013 and 2018. *The top three classes raising the most amount of money to support students!

Thanks to your generosity

in the last decade, RCSI has awarded 75 Scholarships in Medicine, Pharmacy and Sport, 203 Clinical Elective grants, 126 placements within the Research Summer School and 81 Student Hardship supports.

In 2023, over 300 alumni volunteered as student mentors, reunion ambassadors, student placement providers and content creators, giving over 640 hours of their time.

Thank you!

If you would like to support RCSI students, you can do so by: Visiting rcsi.com/support-us

Emailing alumnioffice@rcsi.ie

Calling +353 1 402 2729

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