He may have decided to step down as medical director at St Patrick's Psychiatric Hospital in Dublin, but Prof Anthony Clare looks set to retain his status as the State's only celebrity medic.
"It is all very premature," he said yesterday from his office at the hospital. "I am not stepping down until the end of next year and even then I will remain on as a consultant in the hospital."
Prof Clare will continue his work in media - including programmes for BBC radio - and will finish writing a book on men by the end of this year.
He has been at the helm of St Patrick's Hospital since 1989 and took the post on the understanding that it would be for a fixed term and not until retirement. "It should definitely be a time-limited position, I felt it was important to have a rotation," he said. It is thought the post will be openly advertised for the first time towards the end of this year.
He said his time at the hospital had been "a very good 10 years through difficult times with rigorous demands to run a cost-effective ship". Today he claims the cost of a bed in the hospital, taking into account drugs and consultant care, is cheaper than a room in the Conrad Hotel.
"We have reduced readmissions and increased first admissions, which is always a healthy state of affairs," he said.
People are more willing to identify distress and disturbance now. "They are much more forthcoming about things such as marital breakdown or occupational issues," he said.
Another development has been the psychiatric consequences of the boom. "People are working very hard to get the kind of money to pay for their increased expectations and this can put them under a lot of pressure if there are any unexpected financial setbacks," he said. "It is a competitive world out there".
Even Prof Clare gets stressed sometimes and on those occasions "I try to practise what I preach". He will enjoy having more time to relax. "In some ways I am quite lazy," he said.