One of many extra obscure sources of satisfaction to be present in a medical profession is the sheer selection – and stage – of expertise that so many medical doctors possess, together with any aptitude for his or her precise job, writes Dr Chris Luke
Many medical faculty graduates in fact go on to nice success or historic influence outdoors or alongside medical follow, and one instantly thinks of politics (e.g. former Taoiseach, Dr Varadkar), world well being (e.g. Dr Mike Ryan, Dr Anthony Fauci), daytime TV (e.g. Dr ‘Phil’ McGraw), radio (e.g. Dr Ciara Kelly), comedy (e.g. Dr Graham Chapman of Monty Python fame or Dr Phil Hammond), writing (e.g. Dr Adam Kay, writer of This Is Going To Harm; Somerset Maugham, Chekhov, Bulgakov, Conan Doyle, Verghese, Gawande, Sacks, and so forth), revolution (e.g. Dr Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara), different medication (e.g. Dr Deepak Chopra), area journey (e.g. Dr Mae Jemison), start-up IT enterprises (e.g. Dr Declan Kelly), or poetry (e.g. John Keats, licensed apothecary and doctor).
The latter is probably not the best exemplar maybe, on condition that he died of devastating pulmonary tuberculosis simply 5 years after he certified in Man’s Hospital in 1821 (and give up follow shortly afterwards) however he did write – poignantly and presciently – that “a poet is a sage, a humanist, a doctor to all males.”
And as a lifelong fan of his poetry, I do assume that Keats soothed many a furrowed forehead over the following two centuries, along with his ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’, draughts ‘of classic’ and beakers ‘stuffed with the nice and cozy South’, amongst many different themes. The medic-writers have additionally enthralled and impressed generations of individuals with their detective novels, thrillers and performs, whereas the TV-medics have additionally left their mark, and I can consider a couple of medic who has gone on to exceptional industrial success.
This summer time, nonetheless, given the relentlessly grim information (I’m pondering of Coolock, Southport, Gaza, Ukraine, Bangladesh and so many different ‘scorching spots’ of violence and desolation), my medical hero has acquired to be that younger medical man from Aughadown, ‘a couple of miles west of Skibbereen’, Dr Paul O’Donovan. He’s, I have to remind the reader, only one half of the now-legendary ‘O’Donovan Brothers of Skibbereen Rowing Membership’, who first burst on to our screens and airwaves once they received a silver medal of their rowing pairs class within the 2016 Rio Summer season Olympics, after which entertained the entire inhabitants of Eire with their particular model of self-deprecating Corkonian quips.
‘Shut your eyes and pull like a canine’ was shortly included into the nationwide lexicon (#pulllikeadog went viral shortly on-line), to explain the herculean effort wanted to win a rowing medal on the highest stage. So too was ‘Nana’s brown cake’ (the home-made soda bread they routinely devour after their spectacularly intense coaching classes on the Ilen river in wonderful West Cork).
Since then, Paul has received gold medals on the 2020 Tokyo Summer season Olympics and, once more, this month on the Paris Summer season Olympics, along with his new companion, Fintan McCarthy. Expectations have been excessive, naturally, given their pedigree, however the huge Irish crowd by the lake on the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium weren’t disenchanted, and, amid roars of “Corcaigh abú!” and a mass of waving Irish tricolours, O’Donovan and McCarthy have been ‘completely dominant’, beating their nearest rowing rivals from Greece and Italy by greater than a ship size.
It could not be an understatement to say that there have been tears of pleasure shed by many Irish spectators, from the city corridor in Skibbereen to the banks of the Seine, the Lee and the Liffey. However, as is his wont, ironic understatement was the totally unforced model of Dr O’Donovan’s response to a collection of radio and TV interviewers:
“Paul, that was no fluke!” (Dr O’Donovan: “[Well] like, you don’t ever actually take into consideration that stuff [winning gold] so when folks say it, it sounds a bit unusual and a bit alien however we’re simply proud that the work has paid off and the plan labored out. It’s been nice. It’s simply been a lot enjoyable…”)
“Paul, you could have felt you have been within the crosshairs after your earlier wins?”
(Dr O’Donovan: “I don’t assume we had a complete load of stress on us, to be sincere,” [he said, ‘nonchalant and deadpan’] “I don’t assume we felt it both in Tokyo or different years,” in keeping with the report in The Irish Instances).
“And, Paul, it should be nice to win on this great setting [here in France]!”, stated the TV reporter. (Dr O’Donovan: “[Ah sure] the one distinction between the rowing within the Olympics and in Skibbereen is the massive grandstand and the flowery paintwork.”
However whereas RTÉ’s Brendan O’Connor struggled considerably to counter his fellow-Corkonian Paul’s quickfire quips and willpower to not ‘get above himself’ (his remark was “There’s a believable deniability about all of your winding up!”), the overwhelming impression of these listening or watching was that Paul and Fintan have been merely two of probably the most first rate, sincere, hardworking and good-humoured younger Irishmen you might hope to fulfill. And, in August 2024 in Paris, the 2 nationwide treasures introduced immeasurable nationwide pleasure at a time once we all wanted just a little pleasure.
There was greater than just a little further pleasure in Dr O’Donovan emanating from College School Cork, the place he graduated in 2023 with a first-class honours diploma and was Graduate of the 12 months, however I’d wish to assume that almost all medics would bask within the mirrored glory of somebody with that stage of expertise, tenacity and humility. In actual fact, my medical hero for 2024 jogs my memory of my boyhood hero, Sir Roger Bannister, who was a junior physician when he grew to become the primary human to run a sub-four-minute mile in 1954. He subsequently went on to have an awfully distinguished profession as a world-famous neurologist and authority on the autonomic nervous system, who ‘when requested whether or not the four-minute mile was his proudest achievement… stated he felt prouder of his contribution to tutorial medication via analysis into the responses of the nervous system.’
I feel it’s great that so many excellent medical sportsmen and girls go on to have sensible careers, given the numerous hours required for examine and coaching. I’m clearly hoping (and certainly anticipating) that Dr O’Donovan could have a stellar profession, however I’m pondering of the various distinguished sporting medics who’ve gone earlier than him. My eternally younger interior rugby fan all the time thinks of the legendary Welshman, Mr JPR Williams, one of many biggest ever rugby gamers, who had a profitable profession as an orthopaedic surgeon (going ‘from breaking bones to fixing them’, as he memorably put it).
And Mr Jack Kyle, ‘the excellent particular person in Eire’s first Grand Slam in 1948’, nicknamed the ‘Ghost’ for his means to glide via defences (and ‘the easiest, the loveliest of gamers and the loveliest of males’ in keeping with the inimitable commentator, Cliff Morgan), grew to become a missionary surgeon in Zambia the place he labored on the similar hospital in Chigola for 34 years. For many of that point he was the one surgeon within the 500-bed hospital. And, in fact, the late nice Professor Barry Bresnihan, a star of the Eire and Lions rugby groups of the early Seventies, who went on to be a world-renowned ‘Grasp of Rheumatology’ based mostly at St Vincent’s College Hospital in Dublin – one of many pioneers of rheumatological analysis on this nation, and a beloved mentor of so a lot of Eire’s present technology of rheumatologists.
However I’m additionally pondering of different stellar athletic medics in Eire now, like Dr Pat O’Neill (GAA/ sports activities medication), Mr David Hickey (rugby/GAA/organ transplantation), Mr Gary O’Toole (swimming/orthopaedics), Dr Philip Doyle (rowing/NCHD), and Professor Eanna Falvey (boxing/World Rugby CMO). I feel our sporting colleagues are additionally ‘physicians to all’, and right here’s a beautiful circularity: in 2024, Paul O’Donovan is the primary Irish athlete to efficiently defend an Olympic title since ‘the best all-round athlete on the planet’, Corkman Dr Pat O’Callaghan in 1932. Dr O’Callaghan had an extended profession as a GP in Clonmel, the place he was made a Freeman and he was ‘revered regionally as a humble, jovial man, identified for his kindness to his poorer sufferers.’ It makes one surprise: ought to sporting exercise not rely among the many entry standards for our medical faculties? 
