Irish Medical Organisation

Scientific Session 3

Shaping Tomorrow’s Doctors

Saturday 10th April
This session explores the changing environment of medical education and regulation in Ireland. The personal qualities required to be a Doctor and issues around Medical School selection will be explored. The Medical Council will also speak on their role in the structure of medical education in Ireland.

Professor Paul Finucane - Head of the Graduate Medical School, UL

Qualities – making the cut
Professor Paul Finucane is the Foundation Head of the Graduate-Entry Medical School at the University of Limerick. He graduated in Medicine from University College Cork in 1978 and since then has worked in the Yemen Arab Republic (as a Concern volunteer), in Wales and in Australia as well as in several parts of Ireland. His clinical background is in Geriatric Medicine, though in recent years, he has focused more on the area of Medical Education.

Within the Medical Council, Paul chairs the Professional Competence Schemes Working Group (PCSWG), which is responsible for the design, implementation and monitoring of Professional Competence Schemes. He is also a member of the Professional Development Committee (to which the PCSWG reports) and the Fitness to Practice Committee.

He is married to Aileen and has two dogs (Porgy & Bess). When not sitting on Committees and Working Groups, he likes to sail and cycle. He also has an interest in the visual arts and in the role of the Humanities in Medicine.

Dr Siún O’Flynn – Head of Medical Education at UCC

Making the grade – Issues around Medical School Selection
Dr Siún O'Flynn spent a number of years working in hospital clinical medicine before expanding her role in medical education. Currently, as Head of Medical Education in UCC, she is responsible for overseeing teaching, assessment, curriculum mapping and course evaluation in the School of Medicine.

She has a research interest in entry and selection and is on the National Research Group Evaluating Revised Entry Mechanisms to Medicine. She is a founding member and steering group member of the Irish Network of Medical Educators (INMED) and also a steering group member of both the International Virtual Medical School (IVIMEDS) and Universities Medical Assessment Partnership (UMAP) in the UK and an investigator in the EU funded Medical Education in Europe (MEDINE) project.

Professor Bill Powderly - Chair of the Professional Development Committee of the Medical Council

Regulatory Issues – The Medical Council

Professor Bill Powderly, M.D., is Chief Academic Officer of Dublin Academic Medical Centre and Head of the School of Medicine and Medical Science at University College Dublin. He received his MB, BCh, BAO from UCD in 1979 and his MD in 1987. He is Professor of Medicine and Therapeutics at UCD and the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital in Dublin, Ireland. Until July 2004, he was Professor of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, USA where he was chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases.

Prof. Powderly has been actively involved in HIV-related clinical research for over twenty-five years and while in the USA held many leadership roles in the US Adult AIDS Clinical Trials Group, including Vice-Chair of the Group and chair of its Scientific Steering Committee. He was a member of numerous Advisory groups for the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the USA. He was also the first Chairman of the HIV Medicine Association in the USA.

His own research originally focused on infections, especially fungal infections, in patients with AIDS and cancer. More recently, he and his group have concentrated on the emerging toxicities of treatment of HIV, especially the metabolic complications seen in patients receiving effective therapy, including the development of diabetes, lipid abnormalities, and bone disease.

Prof. Powderly is widely published in Infectious Diseases (especially HIV and AIDS) with over 370 original articles or book chapters. Together with Prof. Jonathan Cohen, Dean of the School of Medicine at Brighton and Sussex in the UK, he has edited a major international textbook in Infectious Diseases.

He is a Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is currently a member of the Irish Medical Council (and chair of its Professional Development Committee). He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

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