PASSION IN PRACTICE

– Dr. Valerie Donnelly, Obstetrician Consultant, Mount Carmel Hospital

Dr. Valerie Donnelly is a Consultant Obstetrician at Mount Carmel Hospital, Dublin. A graduate of the Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland, Valerie has a Masters Degree in Women’s Health from the University of Melbourne and is past Assistant Master at the National Maternity Hospital and Coombe Women’s Hospital, Dublin. Valerie
commenced fulltime private practice in Mount Carmel in 2000.

›› You graduated from RCSI in 1985. In the intervening years, what major shifts in women’s health have you noticed?

It has been very exciting to witness the change in women’s health over these years. Homemaker is now not the primary role of women and many are working because of the Celtic Tiger. However, this has produced problems, which are caused by excess. We are seeing so much more obesity, diabetes and hypertension in women than we did previously.

There has been a very welcome marked decrease in surgery on women for benign conditions. This has been due to new technologies which can cure these conditions without recourse to surgery.

Women have much more involvement in their own care. They are better informed because of access to the Internet. We no longer tell a woman what she should do, but we work with her as a partnership to decide what form of management is best for her.

›› There is much more emphasis on research based decisions in medicine and this is a very good thing. What attracted you to working in the area of obstetrics after graduation?

I think there were two main reasons for going into Obstetrics & Gynaecology. Firstly, I love working with women and secondly, medicine is all wrapped up into this one speciality. There is medicine, surgery, psychiatry and of course the added bonus of the lovely outcome of a healthy baby at the end of the day.

›› Previous to Mount Carmel Private Hospital, you were Assistant Master at both the National Maternity Hospital and Coombe Women’s Hospital. The shift from what are primarily public hospitals to a private hospital setting must be vast?

I feel the work is the same in either public or private areas. One cares for a woman before,
during and after the birth of her baby. One of the advantages of private care is that you can treat a woman individually. It is much easier to make personal choices; you don’t have to conform to working within a larger institution and you can provide one to one holistic care more easily. On the downside, however, you have to work harder to keep up with modern
trends and technologies. In public hospitals the juniors tend to assist with these.

Read more about Dr. Valerie Donnelly in the Winter 2011 issue of WMB, on newsstands from December 1st.