Mother-of-12 to start studying medicine: ‘I stopped worrying colleges were going to laugh at me’

After meeting her you wonder, is Rosemary Murphy an irresistible force or an immovable object? Her single-mindedness is startling. From age six, watching Casualty on Saturday nights, Rosemary Sweeney, as she was then, wanted to be a doctor. But college wasn’t even on the radar for the girl from Dolphin’s Barn in Dublin, and she left school after the Junior Cert.

Now aged 40, with much life experience and 12 children, she is about to start studying medicine on September 20th at the RCSI, Dublin. As a teenager, she realised her path into medicine “wouldn’t be a linear one, it would be quite bumpy”. But she got there with “pure determination, stubbornness”.

Murphy is smart, articulate, self-aware, determined and really hard-working. She’s packed a lot into 40 years already, and the words tumble out, openly and rapidly, about her life experience, her journey into medicine, her ambitions, her children.

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She grew up in “a very working-class area, a very strong sense of community spirit”. She was close to her parents, neither of whom finished secondary school. An only child, her mother was a cleaner, her father a hospital porter. She lapped up his stories of medics, patients and the morgue: “I’m genuinely interested in the human body, how it’s so resilient yet so fragile, what happens beyond death. Someone has a really bad injury and survives; someone else a minor injury and ends up dying.”

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Third-level was never mentioned. “You work, you get married, you have kids. That was the view.” Plus, medicine was “seen as for the middle-classes. People like us don’t become doctors. But not in a bad way. That was just how society was.” Also, “I think both of them were trying to protect me. It’s a hard course. You need money.”

I am very highly motivated. I’m very ambitious. I just love learning. I love my brain being busy

She was academic at school, loved English, but felt socially awkward. “I felt like I didn’t fit in.” She didn’t do science. She left Loreto College, Crumlin Road at nearly 16, after the Junior Cert. “Sure, I wasn’t going to do medicine anyway, so what was the point?”

She worked in a jewellery shop, a toy shop and a video shop that was regularly held up at gunpoint. (“I’m very laid back. It takes a lot to shock or rattle me. That’s why I think I’ll be a good doctor. I love pressure, I’m able to make decisions under pressure.”) Earning her own money, she was able to travel and enjoy life.

Aged 20, she had a baby girl. At 22, she met Stephen Murphy. They got engaged after three weeks but didn’t marry until five years later. She had always wanted a big family, and so did he. The 12 children are all single births, and are now aged from 20 years down to 17 months old.

They bought a three-bed semi in Lucan, later expanding into the attic and out the back, so the property now has six bedrooms and a large kitchen.

Medicine was still a dream, but years went by. “As you know, life happens. I had more babies. It just kept getting put on there on the long finger.”

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All the same, she says, “I am very highly motivated. I’m very ambitious. I just love learning. I love my brain being busy.”

Along the way, she did a legal studies diploma, and trained in Montessori, speech and drama. Later she did first aid courses, was a rape crisis volunteer and became an advocate for women’s health.

For the past 11 years she’s been seriously trying to get into medicine. Losing a baby, Jesse, during pregnancy in 2016 was significant, and she stopped “worrying that colleges were going to laugh at me applying to medicine”.

She did a UCD Access Course in 2019-20, while pregnant. She had her daughter on a Wednesday, Stephen picked them up from hospital on the Friday, and they stopped off at UCD on the way home for her to do a chemistry lab exam, while Stephen and the baby waited in the car. She could have delayed it, but wanted to get it done, needing As in sciences.

During last year’s Health Care Assistant course in Liberties College, staff were supportive of her ambitions, and she got clinical experience at the Rotunda, giving insight into hospital multi-disciplinary teams. “I loved being involved in patient care. It felt such a privilege.” She graduated with nine distinctions, including 100 per cent in anatomy and physiology (while parenting, being a carer, Order of Malta volunteer and training in first aid).

It means so much more to me now than if it had happened when I was 18. Sometimes I’m annoyed at that teenage girl who let go. But I have to forgive her

“Everything was towards medicine, it was all medicine, medicine. Whatever I needed to do to make it happen.”

She’s done the Hpat (Health Professions Admission Test) several times, and has applied for medicine four times, to Trinity, UCD and RCSI. Without the Leaving Cert or Trinity Access that was no-go, and UCD required students to apply direct from their Access Course (her newborn and Covid had intervened).

In the end being shortlisted, interviewed and offered the place in the RCSI happened quickly over the past two months. “I’m still so excited. I wake up every morning smiling. I can’t believe it. It’s like something that happens to people on the telly or on Twitter, not to me. The dream is coming true. I know I’ve a long road ahead of me, but look, I’m getting there. I know I’ll get to the end of six years. People say the hardest part is getting into medical school. Nothing could be as bad as the disappointment when you get that ‘No’.”

Having fought for her college place for so long, and with her life experience, “it means so much more to me now than if it had happened when I was 18. Sometimes I’m annoyed at that teenage girl who let go. But I have to forgive her because she didn’t know any better.”

I wanted to have a big family, now I want to study, and I’m going to make it all gel together

With 12 children, she says she’s sometimes asked, “Are you very Catholic?” But she says: “I’m an atheist. We have no religion at all. I’m an only child. I wanted to have loads of kids. And to study medicine.” She and Stephen, an electrician, “complement each other. I’m more academically driven. He’s ambitious for different things. He’s happy to take a step back and be with the kids. He wants me to be happy. He has great pride in me.”

Twelve is a lot to manage, but “I think when you have four, it doesn’t really matter when you add more, because it’s the same routine. It’s just an extra plate, a bit of extra washing. If you want something to work you will make it work. If you don’t want something to work you’ll find excuses. Being a mother is an important part of who I am but it doesn’t define what I can and cannot do. They’re [the children are] so important to me, they always come first.

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“I wanted to have a big family, now I want to study, and I’m going to make it all gel together. I’m very lucky. My husband is very supportive and very hands-on and I’m at the point now where I’ve finished having babies, probably. I can focus on study. My youngest is 17 months. My older children are adults. They’re all very close to each other.”

It’s my kids. It’s my husband. The sacrifices they made as well. And the people in RCSI that believed in me

Also, “I’m a great believer in prioritising. Does that have to be done now? Can it wait, or can I delegate it? You have to lower your standards. My house looks lived in; it’s a home.”

She’s particularly interested in obstetrics and gynaecology. The mature pathway to medicine, she says, proves “you don’t need to have a degree, or come from an affluent, privileged background, or look or sound a certain way. You have to be able to work hard, make sacrifices. And you don’t need to be 23, you could be 40, or 50. If you are passionate about medicine and patient-centred care, you should go for it.”

Aiming to widen access to medicine, RCSI offers at least 6 per cent of places on reduced points through DARE, HEAR and mature CAO pathways. It has 12 places for mature (over-23) students, most of them with degrees, and two places are for applicants with Access to Science courses or Leaving Cert plus clinical experience.

Rosemary Murphy is dying to get stuck in. “I know I’m gonna graduate in six years.” All this is not just for her, she says. “It’s my kids. It’s my husband. The sacrifices they made as well. And the people in RCSI that believed in me, and the people who supported and mentored me throughout. I want to make all those people proud. My husband always said I’d be famous, having 12 kids and doing medicine. I’d be in the paper, he said. Isn’t that gas?”