2021 MGA Distinguished Graduate Award Series

UCD School of Medicine was proud to celebrate our MGA Distinguished Graduate Awards with a virtual webinar series in Q1 2021. 

There were three events in this series as follows; 

  • Thursday 28 January @ 19.30 – 20.30 GMT - Award Recipient – Dr Paul O’Byrne (Class of 1975) Respirologist & Dean, School of Medicine, McMaster University, Ontario
  • Thursday 25 February @ 19.30 – 20.30 GMT - Award Recipient - Sr Marian Scena (Class of 1975) Doctor & Coordinator, Faraja Hospice and Palliative Care Centre, Tanzania
  • Thursday 25 March @ 19.30 – 20.30 GMT - Award Recipient - Dr John Donohue (Class of 1967) Retired Consultant Nephrologist, Dublin

MGA Distinguished Graduate Award Event 1 – Thurs 28  January

Please link to the event here and listen to the lively conversation that took place between Dr O’Byrne (Respirologist & Dean, School of Medicine, McMaster University, Ontario) and Prof Keane (Dean, UCD School of Medicine), exploring ‘our time’ at UCD, memories of that time, the speciality chosen by Dr O’Byrne and the reason for that choice, significant career related highlights and challenges and thoughts on the current medical education trajectory and the future for current medicine student, before Prof Keane presents the award to Dr O’Byrne

MGA Distinguished Graduate Award Event 2 – Thurs 25 February

Please link to the event here and listen to the inspiring conversation that took place between Dr Mangan (Retired Consultant Psychiatrist and former Clinical Director of St John of God Hospital, current Board Member of the Hospital and Class of 1975 Rep) and her classmate, Sr Marian Scena, Doctor & Coordinator, Faraja Hospice and Palliative Care Centre, Tanzania. During this conversation Sr Scena told us about her experience at UCD which equipped her to work in an African Hospital in Tanzania, how Sr Scena continued her learning over 40 yrs since graduation so that continued to expand her clinical practice. Sr Scena also told us about times when her knowledge and skill was challenged, how she shared her knowledge with others and the advice she gave to medical students and young doctors who came to do an elective or to spend time at the hospital in Tanzania. Sr Scena concluded by telling us about her current service in palliative care, how her spiritual and environmental experience influenced her as a clinician and whilst working in palliative care and her love of guitar playing and bird watching.

MGA Distinguished Graduate Award Series Event 3 - Thurs 25 March

Please link to the event here and listen to the fascinating and highly engaging conversation that took place between Prof Murray, Prof of Clinical Pharmacology, UCD and Consultant Physician at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital and Dean, UCD School of Medicine at UCD (Dec 2012 to June 2018) and award recipient, Dr John Donohoe (Class of 1967). During this conversation, Dr Donohue told us about his student days in Earlsfort Terrace and his fondest memories of that time and he recounted memories of his clinical attachments as a student and his clinical training in Ireland following graduation. He also told us about what influenced his decision to choose nephrology as a career discipline and his move to Boston in 1970, to pursue a career in that speciality. Dr Donohue was very pleased to return home in 1978 to take up his appointment as Consultant Nephrologist - Transplant Physician to the National Renal and Transplant Centre, at Beaumont and the Mater Hospitals in Dublin, where he spent the next three decades intertwining roles as clinician, teacher, researcher and administrator. Then in 2007, on retirement from clinical medicine, Dr Donohue was elected as RCPI President and served in that role until 2011 and he told us about how much he enjoyed that role and the different challenges it brought and the hobbies he has been trying his hand at since his RCPI Presidency.