This podcast is essential listening for anyone interested in adolescent psychiatry and addiction services in Ireland.

Professor Bobby Smyth, Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, trained in Ireland and the UK, before taking up his current post in the Adolescent Addiction Services in South Dublin. He is a prolific author of peer-reviewed scientific articles, most recently about ‘head shops’, new psychoactive substances, and cannabis legalisation, and his PhD was in strategies to reduce the harms arising from youth substance misuse. 

He is one of a small number of key medical figures in addiction medicine in Ireland and - in addition to being a Ministerial Appointment on the Oversight Committee of Ireland’s National Drug and Alcohol Strategy – he has had a wide range of other roles, e.g., with Alcohol Action Ireland, the General Population Survey Research Advisory Group for the HRB, the Editorial Board of the Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine, the Planet Youth Oversight Group for North Dublin, the Expert Group on Cannabis of the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland, and the Advisory Board of the International Academy on the Science and Impact of Cannabis

In this podcast, Bobby reflects on his ‘nomadic childhood’ and his training in child and adolescent psychiatry in Dublin and Merseyside, he recalls the devastating epidemic of Heroin addiction in the inner city in Dublin in the 1980s and 1990s, along with the associated Benzodiazepine misuse, early tentative use of Methadone, ‘revolving door detoxification’, and gradual evolution of drug addiction treatment facilities in the capital and beyond, he highlights some surprising lessons from his sabbatical in Queensland (where he worked on a pioneering telepsychiatry service), and describes the current complex profile of adolescent drug misuse, particularly in the South, West and East Dublin/Wicklow areas. 

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Professor Tony O’Brien, recently retired Clinical Professor of Palliative Medicine, at University College Cork, and Consultant Physician in Palliative Medicine at Cork University Hospital and Marymount University Hospital and Hospice, is one of the great pioneers of Palliative Medicine in Ireland. Following his training with the legendary Dame Cicely Saunders, at St Christopher’s Hospice in London, his appointment in Cork in 1991, was as the first specialist in palliative medicine in Munster and just the second in Ireland.

Since his appointment, Tony has been an outstanding driver of developments in palliative care in Ireland (90% of which is delivered in the community), and, among his many appointments, he has served as Chairperson of the National Advisory Committee on Palliative Care, the National Council for Specialist Palliative Care, the Irish Association for Palliative Care, the Irish Palliative Medicine Consultants’ Association and the Council of Europe Expert Committee on Palliative Care. 

Listeners to this interview - be they patients and their loved ones or professionals - cannot but be moved by the words of a profoundly humane and inspiring carer, teacher and advocate, who says of modern (often ambulatory) ‘hospice care’: “Nobody wants to receive a diagnosis of a life-threatening disease. We can’t always control what happens to us, but we can always control how we react. In the words of Victor Frankl, ‘between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom’. Hospice simply tries to create and hold that space, with love.” 

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Dr Austin O Carroll, the renowned Inner City Dublin general practitioner and advocate for the

marginalised, is one of contemporary Ireland’s most charismatic and practical humanitarians.

He has co-created several specialised primary care services for homeless people: e.g., Safetynet, the

umbrella organisation for primary care services provided in hostels, food halls and drop-in centres in

Dublin, Limerick and Cork. Safetynet also provides services to the Roma community; methadone

services to homeless people, and care for migrants. Austin also introduced a mobile outreach clinic

for rough sleepers.

Dr O’Carroll was a founding member of D-Doc, and he set up the North Dublin City GP Training

programme, the first such programme that specifically trains GPs to work in areas of deprivation and

with marginalised groups. He co-founded GMQ GP services for homeless people, and Curam, a social

enterprise that aims to establish new GP practices in areas of deprivation. His PhD in ethnographic

research into homelessness helped inform his TEDTalk on developing services for the homeless.

Austin’s remarkable work has not gone unnoticed: he was included in the book, Give Me Irish Heroes

in 2009; and has received numerous awards: Time & Tide Award for his work with migrants; the

Fiona Bradley Award for primary care to marginalised groups; the Healthcare Professional of the Year

Award 2015; Honorary Membership of the RCPI 2015; the Doolin medal in 2018 and the WONCA

(World Organization of Family Doctors) Europe 2020 5-Star Doctor Award for Excellence in

Healthcare.

In between work and family time, he cycles great distances, sometimes for charity, and he sails on the

Irish Paralympics Sailing Team.

In this inspiring podcast, Austin touches on his own Thalidomide-related disability and the ‘tough

love’ that prepared him for adulthood, the importance of distinguishing traditional faith-based and

‘medical’ models of disability from social and rights-based approaches, the devastating power of

‘internalised stigma’, the often-unfair press that GPs receive around prescribing benzodiazepines, the

suicidal ideation that can occur in professionals who are subject to complaints to the Medical Council,

the surprisingly impressive work being done in Ireland in the care of the homeless and marginalised,

and much more.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fergus Shanahan, emeritus professor of medicine at University College Cork and foundation director of APC Microbiome Ireland, ‘the largest human microbiome research centre in the world’, is a clinician-scientist who has published over 600 papers in the areas of inflammatory bowel disease, gut immunology and the microbiome, written or edited 10 books, and received many awards. A former president of the Irish Society of Gastroenterology, his book Fast Facts in Inflammatory Bowel Disease won the BMA Book Award for gastroenterology in 2006. In 2013, Science Foundation Ireland named him as its Researcher of the Year and, in 2016, the Royal Irish Academy honoured him with a gold medal for his research contributions. In 2020, Fergus published The Language of Illness, a critically-acclaimed book, described as ‘part-manifesto, part-memoir, and part-instruction manual’. In it he appeals for the use of ‘clearer, more holistic language by all those involved with, and affected by, illness’, which he argues - passionately - is an integral part of the human condition. In this episode of Irish Medical Lives, Fergus reflects on his happy childhood in Dublin, his halcyon days at the Mater Hospital and subsequent immunology and gastroenterology fellowships in Canada and California, the creation of the first germ-free lab in Cork and the revolution in ‘gut science’ in Ireland over the past few decades. He also provides fascinating insights into the human microbiome, the vital importance of dietary variety, and contemporary gastroenterology, and he concludes with his hopes for a better balance between technology and humanity in modern medicine.

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This podcast features one of Ireland’s most dynamic anaesthesiologists.

Professor Ellen O’Sullivan, a consultant anaesthesiologist at St James’s Hospital in Dublin, has a worldwide reputation in airway management and a substantial portfolio of cutting edge research. She was elected President of the Difficult Airway Society in November 2009 and, in 2016, she was appointed the Difficult Airway Society Professor of Anaesthesia and Airway Management. She has held many senior professional roles, membership and fellowships, at home and overseas, e.g., in the Society of Airway Management USA, European Airway Management Society, the Airway Special Interest Group, and the International Airway Management Society (IAMS). She was elected to the Council of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland (AAGBI) in 2001 and became Vice-President. She received the John Snow Silver Medal for her contributions to the AAGBI, and the Dudley Buxton award from the Royal College of Anaesthetists for services to anaesthesia, and is the Past-President of the College of Anaesthesiologists of Ireland (CAI). 

In this wide-ranging conversation, Ellen reflects on her happy childhood in West Cork, her school days in Cork, as well as the juggling of numerous personal and professional commitments as she made her steady progress to the apex of anaesthesiology in the UK and Ireland, and she touches on her varied global initiatives in airway care and capnography, and her passionate dedication to the development of anaesthesiology in East Africa. 

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In this episode, Dr Chris Luke is in conversation with Professor Seamus O’Reilly, Consultant Medical Oncologist at Cork University Hospital, Associate Professor of Medicine at University College Cork, Vice Clinical Lead of Cancer Trials Ireland, and member of the Executive Board and the Early Drugs Task Force of the Breast International Group, the National Research Ethics Committee, and the Advisory Council of the National Cancer Registry.

The topics covered include the recent challenges of COVID, the role of mentor in medicine, the cost of blockbuster drugs, the misuse of opioids, the recruitment of specialist nurses in oncology, patient hardship and public education, the threats to cancer screening and the future of oncology in Ireland.

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Irish Medical Lives is a podcast from the Irish Medical Times that features conversations with the movers, shakers, and pioneers of Irish medicine in the 21st-century.

In this episode, Dr Chris Luke talks to Professor Mary Horgan, Professor of Medicine at University College Cork, Consultant in Infectious Disease Medicine at Cork University Hospital, and President of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland.

In a wide-ranging conversation, the proud Kerrywoman discusses her own training in Ireland and America, thanks the mentor who pointed her towards a career in infectious disease medicine and reflects on the way the COVID-19 pandemic has been managed here to date; she also explains why she is so enthusiastic about the future of Irish medical education and expertise.

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