COLM O’ROURKE, FORMER LECTURER, BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE

Colm O’Rourke is a Dublin man, and in this recording he initially discusses his career in the Eastern Health Board where he worked as a technician with the Blood Transfusion Service, beginning in 1966. In 1973, he worked for a short period as a salesman with the Johnson and Johnson Group, before his appointment to a senior post at the Meath Hospital, and later at the Mater Hospital at the time when open heart surgery was being developed there. During this period he was also employed as a part-time lecturer in haematology at Kevin Street, where he later took up a post full-time. He gives his views on the facilities in Kevin Street and the major underfunding which applied. Though conditions were challenging, relations between the staff was always excellent. He discusses his views on the bureaucratic structure which exists in hospitals to this day, and he stresses the importance of keeping abreast of developments in biomedical science and in the blood transfusion area, at a time of great change.