Athlone surgeon wants love to feature in medical training

An Athlone surgeon and lecturer is calling for the concept of love to play a central role in the preparation of students for careers as medical professionals.

Claire Donohoe, a former Athlone Community College student, is a clinical senior lecturer at Trinity College Dublin.

She recently attracted national media attention by co-authoring an article which was published in a medical journal and made the case for love to be included as a "core" concept in the medical curriculum.

The article, written with Colin Doherty, head of the Trinity College school of medicine, states that love is rarely mentioned in modern medical education even though it "holds profound significance for the alleviation of human suffering and should be central to the mission of any medical school".

It adds that love "transcends the transactional nature of healthcare to create a human connection that is vital for healing".

It was recently reported that a love will be a 'graduate outcome' that is to be assessed at the Trinity College school of medicine for the first time from next year.

Claire told The Irish Times she viewed this new requirement as a reminder to be "a human with other humans".

She explained that, in this context, love calls on people to feel an emotional response to the suffering or ill health of others.

"It's being able to be comfortable sitting with the discomfort of watching other people suffer. Seeing other people going through difficult things and not losing the sense that they are people," she said.

She said that, historically, medical education has placed a strong emphasis on objective, standardised exams.

"Everything is very cut and dry. You get a point for washing your hands; you get half a point for making eye contact and that kind of stuff."

She added that evaluating a capacity for love holds educators to a higher standard, requiring them to get to know their students and better understand what drives their desire to practice medicine.

Colin Doherty, the co-author of the article published in the Journal of Medical Education and Curricular Development, noted that "if you actually fall in love with your patient, you're doing something illegal".

"We all understand that as a worry. But even the idea of (the word) being foundational and bringing in the vulnerability of the clinician, I think that's still hard for normal practitioners to take. That speaks to medicine's quantitative obsession," he said.

The article, entitled 'Should Love be Explicitly Stated as a Core Enabling Concept in the Medical Curriculum?' also prompted discussion on the national airwaves recently, when it was a featured item on Sean Moncrieff's Newstalk radio programme.

Originally from Barrymore, Kiltoom, Claire Donohoe is the daughter of Tom and former Athlone Community College principal Eileen Donohoe.