Medicine in Ireland
Venture Grant Trip to Dublin, Ireland March 2024
Our Mission...
53.3498° N, 6.2603° W
Ireland is known for its exceptional medical education system. We wanted to explore the reasons for this reputation by interviewing professors of medicine and research in its capital city, Dublin. We are interested in pursuing a medical education or research after getting our undergraduate degrees, so our focus was investigating the factors that make Ireland a global leader in medicine and medical research. Many of the professors we interviewed went to undergraduate, graduate, and medical schools in countries other than Ireland. We were curious how their international experiences influenced their teaching methods, research, and perception of medicine in Ireland. We hoped to leave Dublin with a better understanding of how Ireland's history of research and treatment interconnects with present-day innovation as well as how it differs from the United States.
What types of questions did we ask?
Sample questions:
- After looking at your experiences in academia, we noticed that you have experienced education/research in many different countries. Did you notice major differences in your academic experience in these different countries? How does medical education differ in Ireland specifically? How did you choose to come back to Ireland/go to other countries for schooling?
- How do you feel you have benefitted from your education in other countries? How have you incorporated these experiences into your current position?
- Are there any Irish traditions in medicine that you feel contribute to the current system?
- Are there are any specific techniques of teaching or research in Ireland that other countries should adopt as well? Any drawbacks?
- Is there anything you wish you would have known when choosing to go to graduate schools/do research? Would you have done anything differently?
- What is your work-life balance like? Does your career affect how you manage your mental health?
Professor Derek Doherty
Our first interview was with Professor Derek Doherty, who currently does research at Trinity Translational Medical Institute (TTMI), which is affiliated with Trinity College Dublin. Dr. Doherty is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin and completed a PhD at King's College London and postdoctoral research at the University of Washington. He informed us that he decided to move to the United States because of the funding, efficiency, and better quality of research. He said that Ireland did not have the funds for research at the time, and he was looking for more financial support for his projects. He still collaborates with people from the U.S. that he connected with during his time there. Recently, Ireland has become more prolific in their publications and gained more government funding for research purposes, so it has become less of a common occurrence for people to leave to do research abroad. Although it is becoming less popular, he believes studying and gaining work experience abroad is still an asset as it makes you look better to employers in Ireland. He also felt that researchers within institutions in Ireland are more collaborative than the U.S. research environment. One other significant topic we discussed with Professor Doherty was the strict data protection laws in Ireland. There were many data breaches in the EU in the last 10 years, and the regulations put in place as a result greatly impacted restrictions on medical research. Ireland specifically has the most stringent laws in the EU which have made it more difficult to make progress in the research realm. Dr. Doherty stated that the lengthy consent forms for patient participation in research often discourage patients from contributing to research studies. It also takes many years for projects to be approved, and this can put research at a standstill.
Professor James Paul O'Neill
Our next interview was with Dr. O'Neill, who is a surgeon and professor at the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland. We traveled to Beaumont Hospital, where he performs his surgeries. Unfortunately, Dr. O'Neill got called into an emergency procedure during our meeting so we scheduled a phone interview with him the next day. He graduated from the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland and completed a surgical fellowship in the Department of Head and Neck Surgical Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He decided to study in the United States because there was more money in the medical institutions and more patients involved in clinical trials, equating to more opportunities for publications and research. He said that the surgical experience and research opportunities in the U.S. had a huge impact on his career in Ireland. The specific skills that he referenced learning in the United States were working in a multidisciplinary group, presenting, writing a good scientific paper, and problem-solving skills while in surgery. He also agreed with Dr. Doherty in the fact that Ireland puts less pressure on academics to publish papers in comparison with the US. However, he felt that Ireland is just as cut-throat as any other country regarding competition between hospitals to have the best surgeons and research. While hospitals and doctor visits can sometimes feel cold in other countries, he believes Ireland's medical practice has a nature of being more hospitable, warm, and welcoming.
Professor Michael Keane
Next, we interviewed Professor Michael Keane, who is the Dean and Head of the School of Medicine at University College Dublin. Keane graduated from UCD and completed a fellowship at the University of Michigan. He was also an Associate Professor of Medicine and Program Director for the UCLA Interstitial Lung Disease Centre. He chose to move to the United States because of greater critical mass, meaning more research opportunities. He agreed that as Ireland's medical education system has become more structured and more jobs have become available, more students are opting to stay in Ireland instead of moving abroad after getting an undergraduate degree. He also emphasized that there is less pressure to publish once you have secured a job in academia. He mentioned that the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) supports the collaboration of researchers in Ireland and the United States and that more efforts have been made to communicate with researchers abroad and compare findings. He confirmed that studying abroad improves your chances of getting a job in Ireland. Keane wishes the big academic teaching hospitals in Ireland would be more connected to the universities. He would also like researchers in Ireland to be more focused on creating change rather than simply improving their bottom line. Inspired by the U.S. mentality for change, he pushes his students and colleagues to embrace trying new ways of doing things rather than sticking to tradition.
Professor Darren Fayne
Lastly, we interviewed Professor Darren Fayne, a senior research fellow through Trinity College Dublin. He kindly gave us a tour of the beautiful, historic campus and told us about its rich history. He did not study in the United States, but he worked in the research industry in Germany. He relayed to us the challenges of getting funding for particular projects through SFI, especially if the research is not related to a "hot topic" of the time. He would like the SFI to take into consideration greater input from researchers themselves. However, it was exciting to hear from him how research in Ireland has strong international aspects as many of his coworkers are from out of the country and the SFI encourages projects that collaborate with other countries.
We finished our trip by attending the Trinity Translational Medicine Institute (TTMI) Conference. We learned how clinicians and researchers work together to create meaningful translational biomedical research. A highlight of the conference was learning about new breakthroughs in CAR T-cell therapy as a way to treat cancer. Dr. Darragh Duffy, the keynote speaker recently published in Nature, also spoke on his findings regarding the effects of smoking, cytomegalovirus latent infection, and body mass index on adaptive immunity.
Key Findings
While it is traditional to leave Ireland and study medicine in other countries, more people are choosing to seek out opportunities in Ireland as funding for research and medical practice is growing.
There is also a greater drive towards more translational research in Ireland that leads to more meaningful results for patients.
While the desire to create the best treatment for patients makes competition between institutions inevitable, many professors emphasized a fondness for Ireland's warm hospitality in medical practice and collaboration in research.
Personal Impact
As we are both on paths towards careers in different aspects of the medical field, this project was extremely meaningful to us. Talking with these professors allowed us to better understand how Irish culture influences the processes of getting involved in research, applying for grants, and working with patients. Learning about the professors' different routes (especially their international routes) to get to their present careers and their advice on navigating this field was invaluable. We are grateful for how this project introduced us to new possibilities for career paths and how our interests could be enhanced by experiences abroad.
Next Steps
We would love to investigate these same questions in other countries to learn more about their medical education systems. This trip has widened our views on what medical school and research can look like. It would be amazing to compare our findings from this project to systems in other countries to get a more comprehensive sample size.
