This website has been established to satisfy a demand for information and towards this end I have let my activities as a doctor fall into four categories. This categorisation has the advantage of convenience albeit at the expense of tradition that might have dictated otherwise.
Firstly, there has been my commitment to the practice of medicine and, in particular to my speciality – cardiology – or more correctly to cardiovascular medicine, which obliterates the restrictive confines of the former denotation. I can only document this aspect of my career by indicating milestones that show where I was at a particular time, and the medical personalities whose influence might have been lighting my future path, but my success or failure (are the two ever separable for long?) must ultimately be left to my patients to judge.
Secondly, there is the spirit of enquiry, which attracted me to examine critically how I practiced medicine and this inevitably led me to research, and particularly to research into hypertension and the risks associated with heart attack and stroke. The currency of research is the dissemination of the endeavour of enquiry, which calls for presentation at international meetings and publication in specialist and general journals. In addition to publication of research in prestigious peer reviewed scientific journals, I believe there is also an obligation on scientists to inform colleagues in general practice of research developments and I have included such papers under the broad title of ‘General and Educational’. My scientific publications beginning with an article in the Lancet in 1968 are listed under ‘Bibliography of Scientific Publications’. The majority relate to hypertension and pdf copies strictly for personal research use are available for the majority of some 1000 articles. For those wishing to dig deeper publications are grouped according to subject.
Another logical extension of enquiry, or so it seems to me, is a study of the past. By standing on the shoulders of earlier researchers we can view the pathways to the future. This realisation led me inevitably to study and write about the history of medicine. I have included, therefore, a section on my foray into this subject, which led me to write a number of papers and books. Again a website is ideally suited to not only to documenting these productions, but also to providing illustrative material on the past.
The presentation of communication in medicine, if I may call it such led me inevitably to the editorship of two journals – the Journal of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons (for two terms) and the Irish Medical Journal and probably to founding two presses – Black Cat Press and Anniversary Press – to publish what might be regarded by the establishment as somewhat esoteric works. Again a website allows me to archive the somewhat turbulent consequences of these activities.
Finally, it is my contention that medicine should not be divorced from the humanities, which can bring a sense of compassion and understanding to doctors distracted by the materialistic and technological demands of the present age. This activity removed me from science for some pleasant and rewarding years to the study of literature, in particular the writings of Samuel Beckett. It led moreover to a friendship, from which arose The Beckett Country. Again, a website allows me to share some of the results of this period of my career.
Links
Books by Eoin O’Brien (available under a Creative Commons License)
The Charitable Infirmary, Jervis Street 1718-1987: A Farewell Tribute. Edited by E. O’Brien. Anniversary Press. Dublin 1987.
The House of Industry Hospitals 1772-1987. The Richmond, Whitworth and hardwicke (St. Laurences’s Hospital). A Closing Memoir. Edited by E.O’Brien, L.Browne, K.O’Malley. Anniversary Press. Dublin. 1988.
The Beckett Country: Samuel Beckett’s Ireland. The Black Cat Press & Faber and Faber. Dublin. 1986.
A.J. Leventhal 1896-1979: Dublin Scholar: wit and man of letters. Edited by Eoin O’Brien. Leventhal Scholarship Committee.The Glendale Press. Dublin 1984. Pp. 19-31.
Nevill Johnson 1911-1999: Paint the smell of grass. Dickon Hall and Eoin O’Brien. Ava Gallery. 2008.
Nevill Johnson. The Dublin Legacy. Edited by Eoin O’Brien. Anniversary Press. Dublin 2014.
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.
Disclaimer
All material on this site has been made available for scholarship and personal research only, and must not be used for any commercial purpose whatsoever.
