\u201cEverything\u2019s \u2018grand\u2019, isn\u2019t it?\u201d John Foran is talking about interactions here. For the consultant cardiologist from London, \u201cpartial retirement\u201d from Britain\u2019s NHS in fact meant emigrating to Ireland and a new career; a gradual thing, still with a foot in the UK. \u201cIn medicine, you don\u2019t really retire at 60, you sort of keep working.\u201d<\/p>\n
He specialises in coronary intervention, heart rhythm disorders, structural heart disease, and stroke prevention techniques, and worked for 36 years in the NHS, in hospitals including Great Ormond Street, King\u2019s College, St George\u2019s, and the Royal Brompton, as well as the \u201cperk\u201d of private work. Foran introduced left atrial appendage closure to the UK in 2003, a minimally invasive procedure reducing stroke risk in atrial fibrillation patients. <\/p>\n
A sabbatical aged 60 added cardiac surgical procedures to his palette. \u201cI was doing some stenotomy work, through a video-assisted thoracoscopic port\u201d, working on the heart \u201cthrough small holes rather than big incisions, which is quite nice\u201d. The sabbatical involved time to reflect, meeting new people \u2013 and several job offers.<\/p>\n
He realised, \u201cif I don\u2019t move now, I\u2019ll be stuck in the same job for another 10 years\u201d. One offer was from Mater Private Cork, leading its cardiology team, bringing new interventional techniques and stroke prevention therapies to its Cork Heart Centre. It was \u201can easy choice to make\u201d. <\/p>\n
Longer term, he and his wife, Dympna, hope to retire in Ireland, by the sea. He\u2019s a Foran and she\u2019s an O\u2019Farrell, both born in Wimbledon in the early 1960s. Then \u201cafter Brexit, both of us became interested in having an Irish passport, like a lot of people\u201d. His grandmother was born in Tralee, and his mother in Islington; her parents were born in Dublin. Would it be correct to say Brexit refugees? \u201cYou could say that. An Irish passport is quite a nice one to have when it comes to travelling.\u201d <\/p>\n
They had family holidays in Dingle when the children were young, \u201cand even if the rain was horizontal, the kids still loved it\u201d. He recalls Ireland in the 1970s \u201cquite a different place, Dublin then, compared to what it is now. It just sort of grew on us, really.\u201d<\/p>\n
He had done some proctoring (demonstrating a medical procedure to colleagues) in Cork, \u201cso when I saw the place again for the first time late last year, I had a deja vu feeling. Some colleagues I work with trained in London, so I knew them at earlier career stages. Medicine\u2019s quite a small world. Cardiology in particular. Colleagues I worked with in London now work back in Ireland or in Northern Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n
[\u00a0\u2018It\u2019s bowled me over how Irish people look after each other. And they work bloody hard\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n The experience of emigrating to another country after 60 was smooth. \u201cIt\u2019s not a million miles away. I played squash for a club in Cheam. I\u2019ve found another squash club up the road from Douglas, where I live.\u201d It\u2019s easy to fly back to south London, where they still have a home, to see family and friends, and for their grown-up children, aged 22-27 and based in London, to visit. <\/p>\n They planned the move, finding a two-bedroom apartment to rent in Douglas sight-unseen, with help from the hospital and relocation agents. \u201cI landed on my feet.\u201d<\/p>\n They came across on a ferry during Storm \u00c9owyn<\/a>. \u201cObviously it\u2019s quite rugged, weather-wise, along the Atlantic coast. At first it was minus-5, minus-7, snow on the ground in Cork, 10-11 inches in places, drifting, icy roads. It was quite forbidding.\u201d Even with the lovely weather now, \u201cit\u2019s quite amazing. The clouds that come in off the Atlantic and the weather patterns, the winds.\u201d <\/p>\n People are friendly in his apartment block, and at work, \u201cparticularly the porters, people who work behind the scenes in the hospital, the receptionists. It\u2019s just a great bunch, very easy to get on with. I\u2019m very blessed, I think.\u201d They knew Kerry but have been exploring places in Munster they didn\u2019t know: Kinsale, Clonakilty, Skibbereen, Ballycotton.<\/p>\n Dympna is a specialist cardiac nurse, \u201cretired\u201d too but working part-time in London, spending half her time in Cork. <\/p>\n In London, John \u201cwas doing five different hospitals and almost seven-day working. Here I\u2019m in one place, and it\u2019s five-day working.\u201d He has moved from public healthcare in the UK (plus private patients) to private healthcare here, but is familiar with Irish public healthcare from proctoring. \u201cI\u2019ve got a reasonable idea of what the government hospitals are like. They\u2019re not dissimilar to some NHS hospitals. We have long waiting lists everywhere nowadays. I think the funding maybe is not so good here. The waiting times are longer here, but we have long waits in England too for NHS care. <\/p>\n \u201cSlowly but surely medicine, I think, is changing a bit. Junior doctors have more shift-work patterns, more working-time directive, less vocational feel, compared to what there was 36 years ago. I remember 17 out of 19 days on call when I was a junior doctor. We just took it on the chin and said, that\u2019s the way it is. But now people wouldn\u2019t do that. On the other hand, there\u2018s no substitute for the exposure and the experience you get from that pattern of learning. If you can survive that, you can survive anything.\u201d<\/p>\n