“…without research, we wouldn’t have the treatments of tomorrow. We wouldn’t have the services of tomorrow. And actually, what I often say is, you know, research is just another term for curiosity and curiosity is asking the questions. So if we accept the status quo of where we’re at today, then we’ll never ask the questions – where do we want to be tomorrow? So if you’re curious about what you want to do tomorrow and next year and the year after, in terms of how you want to improve services for patients, and improve treatments, then you’ve got to ask the question: How are we going to do that? And what do I not know?”

– Doug Veale

In the latest episode of our Innovation in Healthcare podcast series, Priscilla Lynch interviews Prof Doug Veale, one of Ireland’s leading translational researchers in rheumatic disease, whose ground-breaking work is renowned internationally in the areas of early inflammatory arthritis, and autoimmune diseases including scleroderma.

Prof Veale is a Consultant Rheumatologist at St Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin, and a Principal Investigator at the Conway Institute for Biomedical and Biomolecular Research, at University College Dublin (UCD).

He set up the only EULAR centre of excellence in Ireland with a broad research team, funded by peer-reviewed grants from a range of national and international sponsors. Prof Veale has also been deeply involved in advancing patient-centred rheumatology care and research in Ireland, and has a long established relationship with Arthritis Ireland.

He recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Irish Society for Rheumatology, where his impressive list of clinical and research achievements were honoured during a dedicated dinner ceremony, which attracted a full room of colleagues from across the country, the UK, and Australia. 

In this podcast, Prof Veale discusses what attracted him to rheumatology, details his many firsts in clinical practice, research, and healthcare advocacy, his professional research partnership with Prof Ursula Fearon, and how his latest innovative research is looking at the prevention of rheumatic and autoimmune disease.