Nothing like ER

NO, it's not like ER. Dr Sophia Varadkar grins at the notion. "That said," she adds, "nearly all the doctors watch ER because it's a fairytale." Varadkar works at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin as a senior house officer in the paediatrics department.

"I've just done six months in Crumlin doing cardiology, working with children who are born with heart problems. It's really, really busy. They work so hard. It's just physically exhausting. You just get physically tired."

For all the doubting Thomases who think medicine is like it is in television land, she explains: "You do so much paper work. You fill out forms. It's a lot quieter and tamer than ER.

"If you were idealistic you'd never stick medicine and you could become very demoralised. A lot of it is day-to-day stuff. Maybe you're easing the burden, but a lot of the time you're not solving problems, you re doing your best.

Varadkar choose medicine largely because she grew up in a family that was "surrounded by medicine". Her father is a doctor and her mother is a nurse. She went to a mixed, multi-denominational school, King's Hospital in Palmerston, Dublin. Before that, she attended Mount Sackville primary school in Chapelizod.

"When I was in my teens I thought long and hard about doing law," she says. In the end it seemed natural that she should study medicine at Trinity College, Dublin.

"I used to walk through there over the cobblestones. You can identify with the tradition. It gives you a real sense of belonging." Medical students are based in college for the first three years of the six-year course.

"They were very academic years. I didn't particularly enjoy that part of the course. There was too much theory. I didn't see the value in that. Now I do. I enjoyed college but once we went into the hospital I really, really enjoyed it. The summer at the end of third year we were landed out to St James's. We put on our white coats, hung stethescopes around our necks and went into the wards. From there on I loved it. I've never questioned it since then. What I probably like most is I never dread going in. I love it, I don't feel this over-powering desire to leave at five o'clock. In some ways I've had it so easy. I always knew what it would involve."

Sophia Varadkar's enthusiasm and dedication brought her through her final exams with first-class honours. The college's board of govenors awarded her a gold medal for her outstanding performance.

Medicine, she explains, is a long road of specialisation and study. "When you qualify you get your degree from Trinity then you do your internship (which is a compulsory year for all newly qualified doctors). After that you must pick a speciality. It never stops, even when you do become a specialist in an area, your brain is not allowed, to stop, you've got to keep it going.

Over the next two years, Varadkar will work in paediatrics studying for a post-graduate qualification. The difference is great between being student with no real commitments to patients and being a qualified doctor. "When you are a student you're just there to learn, you're depending on the people ahead of you. It's more like an apprenticeship.

Once you start working you've go responsibilities. You've a different role."

"It makes a big difference if you like people and company," she says. "From the very start, I loved paedeatrics and obstetrics. I had to decide between the two of them. I have decided on paedeatrics. It's an excellent job and I love the kids. They bounce back so quickly in a way that adults never do. Two days after surgery and they're trying to get up and run around the wards - plus they have parents to look after them. It's also heart-breaking because you cannot save them all."