Prof Eoin O’Brien, Adjunct Professor of Molecular Pharmacology at the UCD Conway Institute
Professor Eoin O’Brien, Adjunct Professor of Molecular Pharmacology at the UCD Conway Institute, has been appointed as the new President of The Irish Heart Foundation. A cardiologist with a special interest in hypertension, Professor O’Brien was founder and director of the Blood Pressure Unit, formerly at Jervis Street Hospital and latterly at Beaumont Hospital for 25 years. He is a long serving member of the Irish Heart Foundation’s Council on Blood Pressure and has served on the Foundation’s Medical Committee.
“We are honoured to have such a distinguished and experienced Cardiologist as President of the Irish Heart Foundation. Professor O’Brien is one of the world’s experts on hypertension and he brings with him a lot of other wider experience including advisory work with numerous health promoting organisations. I greatly look forward to the valuable contribution that he will make to the Foundation,” said Michael O’Shea, Chief Executive of the Irish Heart Foundation.
Professor O’Brien has published over 600 scientific papers on hypertension research, and is author of Blood Pressure Measurement and the popular ABC of Hypertension. He sits on the editorial boards of a number of scientific journals devoted to hypertension and he is a past editor of the Irish Medical Journal and the Journal of the Irish Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons. He is a member of the Board of the Centre for International Health and Cooperation at Fordham University, New York, and Chairman of the Committee on Blood Pressure Measurement in Low Resource Settings at the World Health Organisation.
He has studied and written extensively on the history of medicine, his best known books being Conscience and Conflict: A Biography of Sir Dominic Corrigan, and A Portrait of Irish Medicine; An Illustrated History of Medicine in Ireland. He has also studied the works of Samuel Beckett on whom he has written an acclaimed biographical study - The Beckett Country: Samuel Beckett’s Ireland, and he published Beckett’s first novel Dream of Fair to Middling Women.
“I see the Irish Heart Foundation as having a number of roles that can be achieved though the valuable network established over many years by the Foundation between the medical profession and the Irish community” Professor O’Brien said.
“Cardiovascular disease incorporates a number of diseases, the most common of which are stroke, heart attack and high blood pressure. If risk factor modification, especially blood pressure control, and appropriate drug treatment were in place across the country the occurrence of stroke and heart attack in Ireland could at least be halved” he explained.
In his role as President of the Irish Heart Foundation Prof O’Brien plans to promote public awareness and education on cardiovascular disease and support initiatives aimed at achieving the following:
