‘The hardest part is when patients relapse’

As a consultant paediatric haematologist at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin, the majority of my time is taken up with diagnosing and treating children and young adolescents with blood cancers. I also carry out haematopoietic stem cell transplants in children and teenagers.

I moved back to Dublin in 1995 from London where I was working at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital. Initially I worked at St James’s Hospital and the National Children’s Hospital, Harcourt Street – the latter moved to Tallaght in 1998. In 2002, the department of paediatric haematology transferred to Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin, and I have been there in a full-time capacity ever since.

I have several different titles which include special adviser to the Children's Hospital Group Board and the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board. I was appointed to this in May 2014. I was appointed a professor of paediatrics in 2015, a regius professor of physic in 2014 and a professor of haematology in 2002.

For the past 13 years I have also worked as a principal investigator at the Institute of Molecular Medicine at Trinity College medical school and St James’s Hospital. And for the past 15 years, I have worked as a principal investigator at the National Children’s Research Centre.

My week is very varied but I usually get up at 6.30am when I am not abroad and most days I drop Hannah (17) and Ewen (12) to school. My other son, Fiachra, is 18.

Multidisciplinary team

After working through emails, I go on in-patient ward round with a group of colleagues, an extremely motivated multidisciplinary team of professionals.

The patients we often see are those receiving combination chemotherapy, undergoing stem cell transplantation or being treated for infection complications.

We have weekly psycho-social meetings where the psycho-social wellbeing of some of our patients is discussed and we also discuss children in palliative care.

I carry out my editorial duties for the British Journal of Haematology and the Journal of Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology during the week, as well as having conference calls with the European Working Group on Paediatric Myelodysplastic Syndrome.

We have a weekly combined benign and malignant haematology meeting. All in-patients as well as day-ward patients are discussed in terms of their diagnoses and treatments.

I write papers regularly – the one I worked on this week was our experience over the past 15 years, of children and young adolescents undergoing stem cell transplantation for severe aplastic anaemia. I submitted it to an international peer-review journal.

Diagnosis and treatment

I attend meetings at the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board whose offices are on the campus of St James’s Hospital. I travel regularly.

For example, a recent trip was to Amsterdam for an International Advisory Board meeting on arsenic trioxide for EMEA approval for a specific form of acute leukaemia.

The best part of my job as a consultant paediatric haematologist is being in a position to diagnose and treat children and young adolescents with cancer with the primary intention of curing them – also being trusted by them and their parents and family members to do same.

As you can imagine, from a work satisfaction viewpoint, it couldn’t get much better than this.

However, on the other side of the coin, the hardest part is when patients relapse and their cancer is deemed incurable – this makes me feel so inadequate and I never ever forget the children and young adolescents with cancer I fail to cure. I think about them constantly.

Out of hours

My weekends are usually taken up with standing on rugby football pitches every Saturday and Sunday morning watching my sons. Being a medic, I usually oversee or supervise any serious injuries which may occur. Sunday afternoon is usually taken up with the newspapers and Sunday family dinner.

If the weather is good I take our dog, Benji, for a walk. I relax by listening to music, playing guitar or reading, and I like to go for a few pints in my local, Harry Byrne's, on the Howth Road, usually when there is live rugby on the TV. That aside, I am always asking my daughter, Hannah, to tidy her room, alas to no avail.