Beaumont and Connolly Hospitals – A privilege to work with magnificent physicians. Part 1

There are the best part of 200 consultants between Beaumont and Connolly Hospitals which means that you only know a small number of them as size makes for lack of intimacy. In the old days at the Richmond, I knew everybody and what they were like in a few spheres. As time passes, two generations have been appointed and you lose track. Just for my readers – all 2,400 per month, I give you some artistic impressions of the extent of my truly privileged professional life.
From what I know of the Medical Physicians in Beaumont and Connolly Hospitals, it is a privilege to work in association with them There is NOBODY on the medical side of either hospital that I have doubts about. I can’t say the same about all hospitals. That does not mean that you have to like them all – most of them I do – but by God, they are damn good at their jobs. And they care. I do not know enough about surgery to give you the same comment – lack of knowledge on my part – that’s all – nothing more sinister! The renal transplant surgeons have made a spectacular contribution – David Hickey and Dilly Little were phenomenal for years and the patient outcomes vindicate that. A&E is an in-between specialty and the same plaudits apply to them because I deal with them all. Mind you Joe McKeever in A&E at Connolly is a pal of mine. Michael Walsh in ENT has been a great signing for Beaumont. I hope he doesn’t get the retiring vapours in the present climate.
In my 28 years in this job, the contributions to patient care of Professors Jim Finucane, Shane O’Neill, David Bouchier Hayes, John Horgan, Brian Lane and Paddy Broe have been enormous. Frank Murray, Steve Patchett, Fergus Gleeson, Gillian Murphy, Joan Moroney, Norman Delanty, Peter Conlon, Paul O’Connell, Chris Thompson, David Foley, Brendan McAdam, Ricky Sheehan have just eaten work. What can anyone say about Conor Burke in Connolly – massive success. Patients just love Liam Grogan the oncologist from Offaly. I like him myself – great guy. The clarity of the research concepts of Gerry McElvaney on alpha-1 antitrypsin disease is worth listening to. The more recent appointments are superb and fulfill the stricture – when making appointments, make sure that the appointees are better than you are!. But they are the next generation and their quality will become apparent over time.

The Radiology Department at Beaumont is also spectacular. Professor Mike Lee published a wonderful book on CT scanning – I have a hidden copy – and is a world expert on imaging in the abdomen. Dr Tony “Tojo” O’Dwyer has recently retired after a career as a calm medical administrator who is a role model in that job and an excellent and highly experienced neuroradiologist. Paul Brennan and John Thornton have been a team in Neuroradiology for years now. Kells man Brennan has performed many spectacular interventions – one in particular comes to mind – he opened a blocked vein in the back of the brain with a tiny baloon catheter to relieve a man with raised intracranial pressure, headache and reduced consciousness. I watched the films at the conference and though “Jaze” what a player. Fantastic. When I started in the Richmond, that patient may have died. The use of coils for aneurysmal arterial outpouchings in the brain has transformed the work of neurosurgery. The postgraduate training of our doctors here is life saving here. It is very important to retain overseas connections to encourage the highest standards. The funny aspect of the arrival of CT scanning in the 1980s was the effect on the neurologists and neurosurgeons at the star chamber neuro conferences at the Richmond. Sometimes, having torn some timid junior doctor apart, they would get caught out in their didactic diagnoses by the scans and have to find reverse gear. I must say I loved it.