The long journey home

For many Irish medical students, studying abroad is the only route to becoming the doctors Ireland urgently needs

I have just returned from Łódź in Poland, where I had the pleasure of attending the graduation of a young friend, along with his family and other friends.

The city is home to one of the international medical schools that are of crucial importance to the future of Irish healthcare.

My friend was one of many Irish school-leavers who bravely attended medical school abroad.

Mid-summer is graduation season. My medical contemporaries from Galway cannot believe that they received their parchment half a lifetime ago and many of their children are now facing the world as newly qualified doctors. It does not seem to me so long ago at all.

It is no small thing to graduate as a doctor.

It is a long way from the starting whistle to the finish line. It is a journey that changes lives and is worth a decent celebration.

As our jovial band of parents and supporters embarked from Shannon, the graduates stood out. While it was a small adventure for most of us, for them it was as routine as any of the incalculable times they made the journey.

They knew where and when to stand, sit, and make tracks – it was as unremarkable as crossing the bridge at Portumna was to me those many years ago on my way to and from University College Galway.

But that first journey must have been terrifying. They started in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic and were going to a city where they knew nobody. We have all known loneliness and homesickness, but the teenagers would have experienced these emotions at another level entirely.

It was spectacularly beautiful weather when we left, flying out over the river Shannon and landing a few hours later in Poland.

I could imagine it in midwinter, as they felt the freezing wind when they returned after Christmas. They might have wondered where they would get a summer job, or if there was anyone they knew when they got home to go out with. These students were pioneers.

I often ask the Leaving Cert students who come in to me what they want to do. It is becoming more frequent that those who want to study medicine, veterinary, or dentistry, plan to move abroad.

Part of it is the ridiculous need for high points in their exams. However, for most, the reason is down to accommodation. Many a student has had their enthusiasm drained when they realise that they will have to spend their college life camping out on a relative’s sofa or commuting a huge distance.

Many a student has had their enthusiasm drained when they realise that they will have to spend their college life camping out on a relative’s sofa or commuting a huge distance

So, if they want to become a doctor, they are often looking to universities beyond these shores, to places like Łódź.

The university put on the best graduation ceremony I had ever attended. It was in a huge lecture theatre with plenty of music and cheering. It was obvious that the friendships forged in this English-language medical programme had been strengthened by shared challenges and years spent far from home. You would want to have had a hard heart indeed not to be moved.

Why do I think these graduates have such an important part to play in Irish medicine? The main reason is that they are delighted to finally go home. They told me with utmost delight about how they had landed jobs in hospitals and dental practices in the west of Ireland. Many of them hope to go into general practice near where they grew up.

Some of their friends from other countries will join them in what hopefully will be another boost for rural healthcare.

As we sat outside the restaurant in the evening sun, swifts screeched about the beautiful old buildings. All these wonderful new doctors would be happier exchanging the blue sky for the grey of home and the swifts that are swooping around Nenagh castle.

If you encounter them on your medical journey, be nice to them. In terms of education, it is likely they have had a harder time than you have had, have worked harder, and endured more. Like the swifts, they have come back.

They deserve our thanks and any help that we can give them.