Orla Hardiman, consultant neurologist
Occupation: Consultant neurologist, director of neurology, Beaumont Hospital and medical patron of the Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association.
Personal/family: Four children, Tommy, Brighid, Aonghus and Rioghnach as well as two cats, Maud and Matilda.
What figure from the world of medicine or health do you most admire? I have great admiration for the unsung heroes of our health service. Particularly members of voluntary organisations (including the Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association). Many have dedicated their entire professional lives to bridging the huge gaps in the delivery of care for very vulnerable people. I also have great admiration for the increasing numbers of very dedicated clinical nurse specialists who provide a much needed liaison service between hospital and community-based services.
What other career might you have chosen? Historian, classical scholar or archaeologist.
If you could grant three wishes for the health service, what would they be? Provide free access to healthcare for all at the point of entry with 24-hour access to GP services. Establish functioning and fully funded multidisciplinary teams spanning hospital and community sectors for everybody with a chronic illness. Finally, I would provide more neurologists for the health sector.
What is your greatest fear? Failure.
Have you ever been a patient and were you a good one? Yes, 14 years ago when I was pregnant with my third child I was hospitalised with appendicitis. I knew what was wrong with me but others didn't see the logic of my arguments for some time, but I was very polite at all times.
When or where are you happiest? Sitting in the sun anywhere, reading a book and listening to music.
How do you cope with stress? I try to sit in the sun, read a book or play music, albeit badly. I also consume industrial quantities of dark (70 per cent cocoa minimum) chocolate and engage in prolonged telephone conversation with my two sisters and my long-suffering friends who don't yet have caller ID on their telephones.
What is the trait you most admire in yourself? Honesty.
What is the trait you most dislike in yourself? Always having to tell the truth.
Do you use alternative or complementary medicine or therapies? Definitely not. I'm a trained clinical scientist and I work on the basis of evidence-based research or at the very least reasonable clinical practice. If something works it should be possible to prove.
Who or what makes you laugh? My teenage children, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders and The Onion newspaper.
What is your motto? Truth will out, eventually - but it may take a very long time.
What is your favourite TV or radio programme? Poirot on television and Jazz Alley on Lyric FM.
What books would you bring to a desert island? Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon and some very hard clarinet music.
(Interview by Fiona Tyrrell)