Devoted readers of Patrick Taylor's Irish Country novels know Doctor
Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly as a pugnacious general practitioner in the
quaint Irish village of Ballybucklebo. Now, in A Dublin Student
Doctor, Taylor turns back the clock to give us a portrait of the young
Fingal--and show us the pivotal events that shaped the man he would
become.
In the 1930s, fresh from a stint in the Royal Navy Reserve, and against
the wishes of his disapproving father, Fingal O'Reilly goes to Dublin to
study medicine. Fingal and his fellow aspiring doctors face the arduous
demands of Trinity College and Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital. The hours are
long and the cases challenging, but Fingal manages to find time to box
and play rugby--and to romance a fetching, gray-eyed nurse named Kitty
O'Hallorhan.
Dublin is a city of slums and tenements, where brutal poverty breeds
diseases that the limited medical knowledge of the time is often
ill-equipped to handle. His teachers warn Fingal not to become too
attached to his patients, but can he truly harden himself to the
suffering he sees all around him--or can he find a way to care for his
patients without breaking his heart?
A Dublin Student Doctor is a moving, deeply human story that will
touch longtime fans as well as readers who are meeting Doctor Fingal
O'Reilly for the very first time.
