Doctors make the final cut

UNIVERSITY of Limerick yesterday conferred medical degrees on a class of graduates who did not first dream of careers on wards or in general practices, wielding stethoscopes and thermometers.

The University of Limerick’s first 32 Graduate Entry Medical School (GEMS) students were yesterday conferred with their Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degrees.

The newly qualified doctors have varied undergraduate backgrounds, including music, engineering, commerce, education, cultural studies and the arts.

Established in 2007, the GEMS programme at UL is open to graduates from any discipline and employs practical and interactive approaches to learning.

The programme is also the only medical education programme in the country to employ the ethos of problem-based learning at its core.

The UL school of medicine is the first medical school to be founded since the establishment of the Irish state. It is also the first graduate entry medical school in Ireland.

Addressing the graduates at yesterday’s ceremony, Professor Don Barry, president of UL, said: “The UL Graduate Entry Medical School is another clear illustration of the great pioneering ethos that we have here at the University of Limerick.

“The idea that UL could have a medical school at all was bold, the idea that we would tender against more established medical schools for the honour was brave, the idea that it would be like no other in the country was ambitious but we were determined; nothing is impossible and we have done it, our way.”

At 16, I didn’t know if I was cut out for medicine

- THE youngest of the medical doctors to qualify yesterday is 25-year-old Eimer O’Malley from Glasnevin, Dublin.

She achieved a BSc in Analytical Science from DCU before embarking on her medical studies at UL four years ago.

Eimer said: “I was only 16 when I filled in my CAO form and at that time I did not know if I would have the aptitude to do medicine. I had just completed my studies at DCU and the UL graduate entry medical degree course started so it worked very well.

“I start my intern on July 11 at Wexford General Hospital where I will spend three months and then I will spend nine months at St James’s Hospital in Dublin. My ambition is to specialise in obstetrics and gynaecology.”

Picture: At the ceremony awarding the first graduate entry medical degrees at the University of Limerick were Dr Daniel O’Hare, Belfast, and his girlfriend, Dearbhla Turley, Monaghan