Eadbhard O'Callaghan:EADBHARD O'CALLAGHAN, who has died aged 53, was Newman professor of mental health research at University College Dublin. He is remembered by colleagues as an inspirational leader to a cohort of young Irish psychiatrists, and as someone who championed excellence above mediocrity while remaining modest about his many achievements.
From the beginning of his clinical career he sought to remedy the injustice of inadequate psychiatric services for those suffering from severe and enduring mental illness.
His wish was that the treatment of mental illness in Ireland would be on a par with the treatment of physical illness. Accordingly, he pioneered what will in due course be acknowledged internationally as the 21st-century way to identify and manage first episode psychosis.
He was conscious of the fact that a person’s first psychotic episode can be a very frightening, confusing and distressing experience. Likewise the many negative stereotypes and misconceptions associated with psychosis can heighten the distress for both patient and family.
In developing the First Episode Psychosis Detect Project in south Dublin, his goal was an early detection, intervention and relapseprevention programme for every breaking first episode psychosis case in the region.
His premise was that if early, timely and universal best practice clinical care could be delivered to those who suffer a first episode of psychosis, the consequences of this illness could be modified so as to have a positive impact throughout the life course. To test this hypothesis, a project had to be constructed and evaluated – hence the Detect Project.
Born in 1957, he was the son of Donal and Terry O’Callaghan. Educated at St Michael’s school and Blackrock College, he briefly studied law before choosing to study medicine.
After graduating from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 1982, he served an internship at the Charitable Infirmary, Jervis Street.
He specialised in psychiatry, and following postgraduate training in Ireland and a research fellowship at the Institute of Psychiatry, Bethlem, and Maudsley Hospital, London, returned to Dublin in 1994 to become consultant psychiatrist with St John of God Services, Stillorgan.
At the Institute of Psychiatry he bucked the trend by persevering with an epidemiological perspective of chronic mental illness. His sustained research into psychiatric epidemiology has greatly enhanced the reputation of psychosis research at the institute.
As leader of the St John of God/UCD psychiatry trainee rotation scheme, he developed it into the premier postgraduate psychiatry teaching rotation in Ireland.
From 1994 his work was funded by the Stanley Foundation Medical Research Institute and was later supported by an Irish Health Research Board Strategic Award.
His MD was awarded for a thesis on obstetric complications and the risk of schizophrenia, followed by a DSc for published work.
He published the first of many research articles in 1984, thereafter contributing to a wide range of publications including the Irish Journal of Psychology, International Journal of Mental Health Nursingand Irish Psychologist, and was regarded internationally as a leader in epidemiological psychosis research.
In 1994 he was a visiting lecturer at the Department of Epidemiology and Genetics at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. He spent six months in Malawi assisting with the establishment of mental health services.
In 2001 he was awarded the international gold medal for neuroscience by the Italian Cognitive Neuroscience Research Society.
His patients will miss his empathetic demeanour, while his professional, clinical and academic colleagues will miss his efforts to advance clinical care as well as his collegiality.
Sir Robin Murray of the Maudsley Hospital said he approached his work with “fire in his belly”, while Prof Kevin Malone of UCD recalled his “impish, self-deprecating and infectious sense of humour”.
A Liverpool FC fan, he was a member of St Joseph’s soccer club, Sallynoggin. He also enjoyed sailing and gardening.
A devoted husband and father, he is survived by his wife Virginia (née McPolin), and sons Caolán, Oisín, Harry and Eadbhard jnr.
Eadbhard Donal O’Callaghan: born July 8th, 1957; died May 2nd, 2011