Workign Life: Dr Cróchán O’Sullivan, consultant cardiologist

Catherine Shanahan speaks to Dr Cróchán O’Sullivan a consultant cardiologist in the Bon Secours Hospital, Cork, and Blackrock Clinic, Dublin.

7am

I meet my patients for the day, discuss the procedure with them one last time, and make sure they understand the potential complications and the recovery process.

8am

While patients are being prepped for theatre, I go to a multi-disciplinary team meeting. This is an incredibly valuable resource of specialist expertise and experience where we discuss complex patient cases.

9am

I’m scrubbed and ready to do the procedure. If I’m in the Bon Secours, I’ll focus on patients with complaints such as blocked coronary arteries. To see if blood vessels in the heart are blocked or narrowed, a contrast dye is injected into the arteries and the blockages are seen. This is called a coronary angiogram.

If a vessel is significantly narrowed, a stent can be inserted immediately. The whole process can take less than 40 minutes and we may do seven or eight patients in a morning. The recovery time is very short and patients generally go home on the same day.

I’m fascinated by the development of this procedure, balloon angioplasty, which was first performed the year I was born (1977).

Today a stent may last for life and we can do it through an artery in the wrist. The patient is awake for the procedure.

If I’m in Blackrock Clinic I perform perhaps three transcatheter aortic valve implantations. This is where, due to valve disease, we replace the aortic valve through a tube or catheter inserted into an artery in the groin. Today it’s done minimally invasively with local anaesthetic and conscious sedation.

12 noon

I visit patients in the recovery ward. Because no general anaesthetic is used, the patients will be awake and alert with little discomfort.

1pm

Lunch in the hospital restaurant — it’s a chance to recharge and chat with colleagues.

2pm

I meet my patients and their families again, then write up the paperwork, from GP letters to prescriptions.

6pm

If I’m Dublin I’ll go for a run, have some food and crash out after an intense day.

If I’m in Cork home’s a two-minute stroll. I’ll get the warmest of greetings from my 15-month-old son Samuel — and my wife, obviously.

We’ll fix some food, bathe Samuel, and put him to bed.