A cut above the rest

What is it about academics? Talk about their research, their institutions, the future of third level, and there's no problem. Ask a few personal questions, though, and they're suddenly hesitant. Prof Kevin O'Malley, registrar of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, is no exception. "Do you have to?" he asks warily. Oh, go on then.

O'Malley grew up in Naas, Co Kildare, and was educated locally. The son of a doctor and with three uncles in the profession, he had no difficulty deciding on his future career. "I suppose that, at the time, my ideas were poorly focused," he admits. "But because of the environment which surrounded me, I felt medicine was something I could do." Has he ever regretted his choice? Not for a moment, he says. He particularly enjoyed his biomedical research in which he became a significant figure. O'Malley was the first researcher to write a paper on the effect of ageing on drug metabolism.

A graduate of UCD, O'Malley was appointed visiting assistant professor (medicine) at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, in 1973. After a year as senior lecturer in clinical pharmacology at the University of Dundee, Scotland, he returned to Dublin in 1976, to take up the post of professor of pharmacology at the RCSI. He's been there ever since. In 1990, he became registrar/chief executive of the college.

The RCSI, which occupies a landmark site on Dublin's St Stephen's Green, was founded by royal charter in 1784 to train surgeons. Up to 1,000 students, three-quarters of whom come from overseas, are enrolled on the college's undergraduate medical programme. The college also runs an undergraduate nursing programme and offers basic and higher surgical training and a range of continuing medical education courses. The RCSI's main research areas include surgery, health services, genomics, proteomics and thrombosis.

Last week, meanwhile, saw the launch of the Biopharmaceutical Sciences Network, an advanced research project, which is lead by the RCSI in collaboration with UCC, TCD and NUI Maynooth. The project, which secured over £7 million under the Programme for Research in Third-Level Institutions (PRTLI), will use genetics and proteomics to enhance understanding of how drugs work in humans.

In the 10 years in which O'Malley has been registrar, the college has diversified enormously, he says. New courses and new forms of funding have been introduced. "The future of the RCSI is more secure now than it was 10 years ago," the registrar notes. The college, which has an annual turnover of £20 million, is building up a property portfolio to provide it with future income. People think the RCSI is rich, he says. In fact, "with the exception of teaching facilities, all our major projects are funded by the banks".

Last year, the RCSI introduced an undergraduate degree programme in physiotherapy. This year, the college has developed a four-year pharmacy course, validated by the NUI and accredited by the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland. A proposal to offer the course, which could admit up to 50 undergraduates, is being submitted to the HEA. Subject to the authority's approval, the course could be up and running by next September. Offering the course makes sense, O'Malley says. The RCSI has been awarded more than £10 million to support research in pharmaceutical science under the PRTLI. "We have the research to complement undergraduate teaching in the field. It would fit very well into our overall strategy," he says.

UCD and the RCSI each have a 16 per cent share in Penang Medical College, Malaysia. Up to 60 Malaysian students spend their first two and a half years' medical study in UCD or the RCSI and then move back to Penang to do their clinical studies.

The RCSI recently opened a new, 48,000 sq ft clinical sciences building at Beaumont Hospital. The £10 million building is the first of its type in Ireland, according to O'Malley. It boasts a state-of-the-art teaching facility, which is designed to give students the chance to acquire a lot of clinical skills before they start meeting patients. There's space, too, for postgraduate teaching, surgical training and clinical research and both in- and out-patients facilities.

The RCSI's most recent educational initiative is BeST - or electronic Basic Surgical Training. This Internet-based programme offers trainee surgeons a complete programme in basic surgery. "The programme contains 18 modules," O'Malley explains. "Trainees can take it at their own time and pace and in their own place. It's highly interactive, dramatically visual and user-friendly." The programme, which will become available next year, is aimed at people who are in their first two years of surgical training. Initially designed for surgical trainees in Ireland, the programme is now likely to have a world-wide market.

Its curriculum has been based on one agreed by the four Royal Colleges of Surgeons - in Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow and London. "Students who buy into it will have all the material they need for passing their exams," the RCSI's registrar notes. "The potential for distributive education - a better term than distance education - is huge. We see it as a model for the way education is going. We are looking at projects with other partners in medical education using this model."

At postgraduate level, e-learning will replace lectures, he predicts. "It means that people won't have to come from, say, Kerry, for weekend lectures. The system is very user-friendly and easy."

Undergraduate education will also change as a result of distributive education. "We'll be able to deliver a lot more courses at a distance. The whole face of education is going to change. We'll still need constant personal involvement and tutoring, but space for teaching will become less of an issue in the future."