Heartbeat: Enough of the disasters of the health service, especially as it is obvious to any fair-minded person that the Minister and his Department are making a decent fist of things under difficult circumstances and the critics are motivated by politics, greed and self-interest.
So to preserve my sanity I am going to wander back again to student days. After the completion of our third year in college i.e. after Second Med, I had my first introduction to patients and hospitals.
For me this introduction was brief, as I elected to take a BSc degree in the subjects I had spent the previous two years studying, needless to say in greater detail and with the addition of advanced embryology and anthropology.
This entailed losing the class I had commenced with, and picking up the following class a year later. Some of my classmates at that time joined the British Army. Basically, the army paid the fees and an allowance and when qualified the young doctor guaranteed "X" years to the army. These guys then had money.
This decision of mine also meant that I could defer the selection of a general hospital for my training.
Essentially, UCD students went to either the Mater or St Vincent's, the latter at the time being located at the corner of St Stephen's Green near the university at Earlsfort Terrace and, more importantly, near Hartigan's pub and the Singing Kettle restaurant.
The Mater, on the other hand, was somewhere out in the sticks on the north side of the river. One had to apply to St Vincent's for the honour and privilege to be accepted as a student; I suppose they were going into training for the move to Dublin 4.
The Mater, on the other hand, was more realistic. There was then, and there remains now but less so, an intense rivalry between the two UCD hospitals which I suspect that over the years served neither themselves nor their university well.
For myself, there was also the honour of being honorary secretary to the rugby club, a position I occupied for two years.
In hindsight, why anybody in their right mind would want to be honorary secretary of any organisation beats me, unless one is born with a penchant for ringing bells and blowing trumpets. We had an excellent team at the time including several Irish internationals.
For some reason, that still escapes me, I did not figure myself.
I did, however, figure at the lower end of the spectrum on more humble teams. I still remember the difficulties of getting a team of students to some wild place like Greystones populated by savages and man eaters, when half our team arrived at the interval to rescue any survivors.
It was far from the lofty heights of the first 15 whose annual colours match with Trinity was the highlight of the season. This usually had all the characteristics of a re-run of the Battle of the Boyne.
Other trivia of student life preoccupied us. It was a reality that many students needed summer jobs, as it was necessary to earn extra money in those fee-paying days.
Such money usually went to subsidise the lifestyle for the year ahead and to some degree removed the necessity of accounting to parents for money spent. Fruit picking, the buses in the UK and the canning factories all inherited our students over many summers.
As a result of the canning factories, in the days before health and safety I have a lifelong aversion to tomato ketchup. I suppose things are much better now.
I was lucky. By day, I studied for scholarship exams and by night I worked for Ryan's car hire where I was assigned as driver to the late Terry O'Sullivan, the author of Dubliners Diary in the then Evening Press. Seamus Smith, later film censor, was the photographer and I guess I learned a lot of things far removed from medicine.
I could not have had two nicer people to work with and I was introduced into many areas of Irish life at all levels that were to me then unknown. Many will remember Terry and many will know his talented daughter Nuala, clear evidence of a writing and journalistic gene.
For my part, I found Terry to be a charming, witty, urbane man, from whom I learned a lot, particularly tolerance and the non-judgmental ability to try and see all points of view.
I remember another blow to my psyche during this period. The team had just covered the opening of a new ballroom and dance studios by the Irish professional ballroom dance champion and his partner.
The lady very kindly offered lessons to both Seamus and I. Much to my astonishment, she intimated to me that there ought to be a connection between the music and the steps. I most definitely did not belong to the "I got rhythm" school. Seamus prospered.
Apropos dancing, a classmate reminded me of the tall girls dance in the Ierne ballroom. If the male was over six feet, he got in for free. I suppose nowadays the vertically challenged would bring this outrageous discrimination before the Equality Authority.
Those, however, were saner days with real issues.
• Dr Maurice Neligan recently retired as a leading cardiac surgeon.