By Ashton School on Nov 24, 2015.   No Comments

Prize Day 2015 – speech given by past pupil Ms Ruth Delaney, consultant orthopaedic surgeon and Hall of Fame Award winner for 2015

ruthGood afternoon everyone, Bishop Colton, Principal Landen, Board of Management, parents, teachers, and especially all of you Ashton students.

May I say at the outset how honoured I am to have been invited back to speak to you at your annual Prize Day,  and to see the beautiful new school. It’s not too long ago since I sat in those seats where you are now, and I seem to recall that, on occasions such as this, the person standing up here is supposed to offer valuable career advice which you all will take to heart and which will doubtless have a significant impact on your futures… as if!

I am under no such illusions – your parents, teachers, coaches and role models will, rightly, have a much greater influence on your future decisions.

So, what I propose to do here is relate some experiences I’ve had, and some lessons I’ve learned along the way, and you may hear something that resonates , even a little, with you.

I was once told by a senior colleague when I started out in my medical training that one’s career is 70% luck and 30% positioning to take advantage of that luck. To put it another way, luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. I only realised much later how right he was.   So the lesson from this is “Don’t limit your horizons and be prepared to explore new paths ”

In exploring new paths, pursue educational opportunities, work placements and other experiences (including travel) that will set you apart from others competing for that opportunity or that job, because one of these may be what makes you stand out – your unique selling point!

Travel can be as important an experience as any other educational opportunity.   As a transition year student in Ms. Becker’s German class, I go to spend some time in Germany. The friendships forged on that trip have stood the test of time, and just three months ago I attended my friend Verena Burgardt’s wedding in Münster, seventeen years after we first met as school students!

Education can be a somewhat singular pursuit, especially in the Irish system,  and yet in most workplaces good teamwork is the key to successful outcomes.  Good teamwork is more often learned through team sports, special projects and other extra-curricular activities where we learn to rely on our colleagues and, importantly come to appreciate that we can achieve much more when working together.

Don’t be afraid to be ambitious about what you want to achieve in life – then you will always have more on your “To Do” list than you can accomplish.   But that’s OK… as long as you have them in order of priority: or to put it another way, if you have a lot of balls in the air, you need to know which ones are rubber and which are glass; which ones you can drop, let bounce and pick up later, and which ones will shatter if you don’t prioritise them. A focus on organising and valuing your time will serve you well in today’s world.

I expected that the greatest challenge I would face on returning to Ireland after six years away was coping with a different medical system and different ways of doing things. I soon discovered, however, that I had to deal with the taxman, find a good accountant, establish an office and hire a practice manager.   I was glad that I had paid some attention during Mr. O’Sullivan’s Business Studies class as, at least I had some basic knowledge I could rely on.   So, if you are hoping to be an architect, a physiotherapist, a personal coach or a farmer, remember that your knowledge of other subjects, which may not have seemed so relevant at the time, like accounting, could be invaluable and, worst case, it might even enable you to avoid jail!

In April 2013, I was on call at a major Boston hospital over the Patriots’ Day weekend and that Marathon Monday of the Boston Marathon bombings. and what I want to talk about briefly are some experiences arising out of that very difficult period.

I won’t go into the details of that week itself very much, other than to briefly reflect that getting to the hospital through police barriers that day, and later in the week dealing with the shoot out and the city on lockdown was surreal.

One young patient whom I took care of was telling me how he had spent a semester in Galway and was a fan of the Irish rugby team. He used to enjoy going to Six Nations matches with his friends in Ireland. He unfortunately lost his left leg in the bombings, and his wife ultimately lost both legs. At the time, there was an online support campaign where various sports stars were sending video messages of support.

I contacted Dr Eanna Falvey, the Irish team doctor and a close colleague from Cork, to see if there was any chance one of the Irish players might do something for it. He and Mick Kearney, the manager, went one better and sent a signed Irish jersey (somehow Simon Zebo signed it twice!). It meant an awful lot to that young man and it was a very classy thing for the Irish rugby team to have done.

I decided as a result of all this that I would run the Boston Marathon the following year, in 2014. I was fortunate enough to be given a number as part of the MGH Emergency Reponse Fund charity team. The only catch was that I had to raise $5,000. One can’t do this without sponsorship (and certainly not on an orthopaedic resident’s salary!).   So I sent out emails and put my Crowdrise fundraising link on Facebook, and one of the first responses I had was from London, from Andrea Klettner, an Ashton school-friend.   Andrea and I had played hockey and tennis together during our time in Ashton. Truth be told, Mr Landen probably remembers us as the two who talked too much in his Physics class!

So, remember to keep up your friendships, support one another and you all will be the stronger for it.

To conclude,

a quote which appeared in corporate America sometime around the year 2000, but which carries echoes of Oscar Wilde -“be yourself, because everyone else is taken”.

Following the crowd, however, may be the easy thing to do, but take care before following the well-trodden path, as it may have been made by a herd of cattle, or worse, a herd of donkeys !

Many thanks for you attention, it has been my great pleasure to talk to you.

Ruth Delaney
Class of 2000
13th November 2015

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