Medicine in Ireland

Venture Grant Trip to Dublin, Ireland March 2024

Marin Snyder and Liz White

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:

  1. 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?
  2. How do you feel you have benefitted from your education in other countries? How have you incorporated these experiences into your current position?
  3. Are there any Irish traditions in medicine that you feel contribute to the current system?
  4. Are there are any specific techniques of teaching or research in Ireland that other countries should adopt as well? Any drawbacks?
  5. Is there anything you wish you would have known when choosing to go to graduate schools/do research? Would you have done anything differently?
  6. What is your work-life balance like? Does your career affect how you manage your mental health?

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.

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.