Jeanne Victory, communications manager, GlaxoSmithKline
Occupation: Communications manager, GlaxoSmithKline.
Personal/family: American, living in Ireland for over five years. Married to Paul (Harrison), mother to Andrea (2), home in Malahide.
What figure from the world of medicine/ health do you most admire? Health professionals who forsake a comfortable life in the western world and dedicate themselves to helping people in poor and under-resourced countries.
What other career might you have chosen? I'd love to have been a doctor, curiously. If only the sight of blood didn't make me want to faint
If you were appointed Minister for Health, what would be your first priority? Where to begin? Rework the insurance payments scheme to encourage more preventative GP visits; reduce the number of administrative positions in the health service; and upgrade the maternity hospitals. The care is brilliant so why do the facilities look like they are from before the second World War?
Do you have a phobia/what is your greatest fear? Spiders. And Irish slugs. How do they manage to slither under the doorways, anyway?
Have you ever been a patient and were you a good one? Yes and yes, in that frightened-two-year-old sort of way.
What three books would you bring to a desert island? Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte); The Prophet (Kahlil Gibran); and Dummies' Guide to Desert Island Survival.
Have you a fail-safe method of dealing with stress? I'd start with a good, long run. If that fails, a bottle of wine.
What is your favourite TV or radio programme? I spend over two hours a day on the dreaded M50 so radio is my closest companion. Morning Ireland for my news updates, George Hook (Newstalk 106) for some brilliant banter, and Ian Dempsey for a lot of you-have-to-be-Irish-to-understand type humour.
If you did not live in Ireland, where would you choose to spend the rest of your life? Italy. For the climate, the scenery, the cuisine, the wine and, of course, the Italians.
Summarise yourself in 12 words. An energetic, charismatic handful with a warm heart and a stubborn streak.
Do you use alternative medicine/therapies? Absolutely. I believe there's no one right therapy for every person. Alternative treatments have a major role to play and should not be mutually exclusive with traditional medicine.
Who or what makes you laugh? Monty Python, Jerry Seinfeld and my husband, Paul.