HEARTBEAT: Having diverted myself, if that is the appropriate word, into the dissecting room and also to other related issues, I must point out this was a limited part of the life of a medical student.
Having diverted myself, if that is the appropriate word, into the dissecting room and also to other related issues, I must point out this was a limited part of the life of a medical student.The academic bit was inescapable - well almost - and formal lectures and practicals took up nine to six, Monday to Friday, and would you believe nine to one on Saturdays. European working time directive how are ye!
There were gaps of course which prudently should be spent in the library. Why is it that the virtues like prudence are so hard to obtain whereas the vices seem to just come naturally?
It was a different time and a different Dublin. For the student, there was little in the line of sophisticated entertainment and, in any case, most of us had little money. Some went to the theatre (usually the gods - do those Olympian heights still exist?).
More went to the cinema, often during lecture hours, and the sports grounds - and sports facilities were there for the more active. There were no such things as nightclubs at our level and a late night party was as good as it got. You usually brought your own provisions, six Guinness in a brown paper bag being the usual offering.
The rumour of such an event attracted hundreds of the uninvited after closing time but there was rarely any trouble. To this day, however, I retain a great respect for those who gave these functions, as the venue flat or house must have been uninhabitable for weeks afterwards. Incidentally, there seemed to be no such thing then as an apartment. Is that a posher word for a flat? For us, the whole known world within a radius of one mile centred on St Stephen's Green.
There were, it is true, rumours of strange lands and peoples beyond the pale but they were not germane to life within our cocoon. Dances in clubs, usually rugby and in various ballrooms around the city, permitted social intermingling. I unwittingly nearly caused the demise of my children from paroxysms of laughter when I referred to these events as "hops". I retreated rapidly into my geriatric shell. I remember also the Metropole, the Crystal, the Olympic and the Four Provinces (rather risqué that one).
The formal faculty and club dances were very important also. No question of going on your own or with the lads. There was not even a sharing option; the gentleman paid for the lot, tickets, flowers, chocolates and with little expectation. We really were an innocent lot. The above arrangement now, with the rise of the sisterhood, seems archaic but I suppose everything changes. There were other peculiarities also. Most had been taught ballroom dancing formally and you actually held your partner. If you remember Earl Gill or Neil Kearns, you know the world I am referring to.
If, on the other hand, you belong to the school who stand in the midst of ear-splitting discord and gesticulate at each other, then you can only thank me how far you have evolved. The days of the disco deafness tribunals I suppose are not too far off. The centre of the universe contained all we needed and could afford. The pubs like Hartigans (women only tolerated on the night of final medical results), the Lincoln Inn and a few more were more than adequate for our simple needs.
The latest legislation will convert them all into oases of clean air to which the citizens can fly to escape the fumes and pollution outside.
I suppose this was the intention of our modest Minister for Health all along and that those who felt he should shore up the collapsing health service first have got it all wrong. We lead the world. Hooray! And we have got the lads on the trolleys off the front pages.
We never had to queue for a pub, a phenomenon I saw only recently. I pointed out to my brood that there did not seem to me to be a shortage of pubs in Ireland and was informed condescendingly that these were the "in" places. The problems of our world we did not see or choose to see. They were not as now the problems of affluence but of poverty, chronic unemployment, emigration and inadequate educational opportunity.
It was a deeply conservative society, rigid and inflexible. Nowhere was this more apparent than in medicine, where the first State intrusions into a hierarchial and proprietorial system were treated with suspicion and outright hostility.
As medical students we were scarcely aware of this, but on our arrival on the wards we very soon would be.