Life Close to the Bone

26th Jul 2013

On Friday Blackrock Clinic was delighted to host the launch of ‘Life Close to the Bone  Musings of an Orthopaedic Surgeon’, the book written by one of its co-founders, Mr Jimmy Sheehan.

Over 100 friends, family, colleagues and former patients joined us in the Atrium of the hospital to see Minister Reilly and to support Jimmy in the launch of the book.

According to Jimmy, the book evolved out of the simple documentation of the history of Blackrock, Galway and Hermitage Clinics, as he felt it important to document the story to avoid distortion over time.

In the book,  Jimmy offers readers his thoughts and findings on a variety of key areas in healthcare, delivering a hybrid of opinion, examples and hard-won wisdom.  This is an important book on healthcare leadership, applicable to both the public and private sector  which examines management theories from Gerrits Construction’s 8 Principles for hospital development to Toyota’s Lean principles.

During the launch, Jimmy talked about the synergies between public and independent hospitals and how they could share their knowledge and expertise.

He argued that the division of services into public and private was an illusion created by the media and politicians.  He believes that, in fact, the two are complementary and that Private Healthcare Management Practice has much of value to add to the Public System.  This is particularly appropriate with the imminent introduction of Universal Health Insurance since the private health sector’s experience in developing efficiencies and costing procedures is very beneficial.

Both Jimmy and Minister Reilly talked about the value of the Independent Hospital sector and its contribution to the progression of healthcare in Ireland.  Minister Reilly called the contribution ‘tremendous’ and stated his intention to keep the valuable Independent sector integral to Irish Healthcare.

Friday was a chance to celebrate one of our founder’s achievements and these are indeed very remarkable.  Jimmy has worked tirelessly to make the patient’s experience better and he has had a significant impact on the Healthcare sector while doing so.  The morning was a celebration, and one which demonstrated what we at Blackrock Clinic, are all about: the patient, innovation and expertise.