Josh Keaveney, consultant anaesthetist, Beaumont Hospital, and president of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association, which is locked in negotiations with the Government over new contracts
I normally start work at around 7.45am-8am. You have to start early in order to set things up for the day. Between 8-9am today we had the weekly anaesthetic clinical conference where topics are reviewed or interesting cases are presented for discussion or criticism - constructive criticism.
I have four surgery cases on today, which will take until 5-6pm. There was a fourth case but the patient cancelled.
When you have a large number of people on A&E trolleys it does affect the list as the beds are being taken up by emergency cases, so the elective cases may be cancelled.
If the emergency cases are surgical ones, you may end up doing different types of surgical cases than you had expected. This can be a little stressful at times if you are not sure of what the cases are going to be or how ill the patient is.
Today I had a meeting at 12.30pm about our pain clinic, and I usually have a few consultations as well.
We run a successful pain management clinic which has two sections, one for chronic pain and one for acute pain, of which I am a director. I run the pain clinic all day on Mondays. We use a variety of methods, from medications to procedures to physiotherapy and psychology.
Half of my clinical time is spent on pain management and half is spent doing anaesthetics.
We have one of the biggest pain clinics in the country which we expanded recently to a big, ward-
based epidural service. The investment in the clinic involved a relatively small amount of money , which has been hugely effective. It is a way of managing patients' pain without having to go to intensive care [ ICU] for heavy types of medication. It allows patients to bypass the ICU after major surgery, which also means that the operation is unlikely to be cancelled [because of lack of ICU beds] which is a huge bonus.
People say: "I hope I'll be okay, and that I won't wake up during the operation." They also want to know how much pain they will be in after an operation. We try to allay their fears as anaesthetics in this country is of a very high standard.
My role as president of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA), which represents 1,400 members, involves a lot of work, but I do most of it in the evenings and at the weekend.
(In conversation with Barry O'Keeffe)