Baeben Schüttke was just five days old when she underwent a liver transplant. Still the youngest child in the world to have undergone such a transplant and survived, the seven-year-old girl, from Clontarf in Dublin, attends Prof Brendan Drumm for regular check-up, writes Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent
"She absolutely loves him," trumpets her mum, Ita Schüttke. "Baeben has long brown hair and every time she goes in he says: 'Well, Baeben, any chance of a bit of your hair this time?'" At 48, he's a bit thin on top himself.
Ita observes that Prof Drumm, cast into the limelight this week after Minister for Health Mary Harney accepted a recommendation from the Health Service Executive (HSE) for his appointment as its chief executive, is superb with children. He makes them totally at ease, wearing Bart Simpson ties for their benefit.
"He's like a big teddy bear. He's always cracking jokes and talks directly to the child," says Schüttke, who believes she wouldn't have Baeben today without Prof Drumm. He advised that her daughter be sent to London for the transplant when she was just one day old. She was born with an overload of iron in her liver, something that had already claimed the lives of two of her other three children.
Furthermore, he had diagnosed the condition that necessitated Baeben's transplant in one of Schüttke's other children after their birth, which meant she was able to watch out for it in subsequent pregnancies. "He was on the ball," she recalls.
Schüttke believes he is the perfect person to run the Irish health service and feels he will know what needs to be done from his work at the coalface.
It is not clear when the Leitrim-born professor of paediatrics at UCD, who is also a consultant paediatric gastroenterologist at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, will take up the top job at the HSE. This will see him responsible for the day-to-day running of the health service, its 97,000 staff and its €11 billion budget.
He has yet to agree terms and conditions for the post with the HSE and will gradually have to extract himself from his clinical commitments before taking over what will be an enormously challenging role.
The €300,000-plus a year job had been given to the UK's deputy chief medical officer, Prof Aidan Halligan, but he backed out, reportedly for family reasons, last autumn just before the HSE was established.
Since then the HSE has been trawling for another suitable candidate and many regard Prof Drumm, who has spoken out about problems in the health sector, as "an inspired choice", a down-to-earth man who has a word for everyone.
Given his outspoken views in the past, and what colleagues have described as his strong view that barriers to progress in the health sector need to be removed, he will undoubtedly be seeking rapid change.
A native of Manorhamilton, Prof Drumm grew up in a family of six. His father managed the local creamery.
AFTER ATTENDING SUMMERHILL College, Sligo, he studied medicine at NUI Galway, and graduated in 1979. His wife, Dr Marion Rowland, an epidemiologist at Crumlin, was in his class at NUI Galway. They now live in Dublin and have four children.
After graduation, Prof Drumm started his post-graduate clinical training at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, one of the world's most prestigious children's hospitals. He was subsequently appointed consultant paediatric gastroenterologist at the hospital and assistant professor of paediatrics at the University of Toronto.
In 1989 he returned to Ireland and was appointed consultant paediatrician at the Regional Hospital, Limerick.
In 1991 he was appointed professor of paediatrics at UCD and consultant paediatric gastroenterologist at Crumlin. At the time he was 34 years old and the youngest ever medical professor to be appointed in the State.
As professor of paediatrics at UCD, he has been responsible for paediatric training for all medical students passing through the university over the past 14 years.
The president of UCD, Dr Hugh Brady, says Prof Drumm possesses a rare combination of talents. "He is internationally renowned as both a clinician and a researcher," he says.
Those who have come in contact with Prof Drumm also say that despite his achievements he remains a modest and humble man. As Schüttke puts it: "He doesn't have this air of 'I'm a professor and I know everything' about him".
The director of nursing in Crumlin, Geraldine Regan, says he has an inclusive and empowering management style: "He has involved nurses at senior management level and he practises a true multi-disciplinary approach."
Paediatrician Dr Michael Mahony, who took over from him at the Regional Hospital, Limerick, says he's a great communicator. "He's a people person. He relates well to people."
He adds that Prof Drumm, who to date hasn't given any media interviews, is also "a doctors' doctor", a supportive colleague and always willing to give a second opinion.
"Now he is taking on an enormous task. He has a lot of administrative experience running a very successful department in UCD and was chairman of Comhairle na nOspidéal. That would give him a good feel for the health service.
"I would think he's a popular choice among doctors. My only concern would be for him, taking on a huge task. But he's always been a man for a challenge and he'll be able for it.
"I hope he does well at it because you could say about him he didn't need to take on this job. He is a highly successful paediatrician. He's hugely successful in the academic and clinical arenas, so it's a very patriotic move."
Another consultant, however, said some doctors felt he was taking on "a poisoned chalice" and would become the fall guy for everything that was wrong in the health service if it didn't improve, from the A&E crisis and the shortage of beds to reorganising hospitals and getting his consultant colleagues to renegotiate their contracts.
THERE HAVE ALSO been suggestions that he doesn't have experience of management on such a grand scale as will now be required. But then there are already lots of managers in the health service. The HSE has recruited more than 10 top managers or directors of services. Instead, it is felt he will be a great leader. He is known to consult widely, and to place a high value on the opinion and expertise of others and on the importance of consensus.
Even during his college days at NUI Galway, where he played rugby and soccer, he was recognised for his leadership skills, according to former classmate Dr Eamonn Ralph. He also recalls Prof Drumm as an extremely popular classmate who wasn't afraid to put himself out to help others.
"He had very good people skills, a fella who was always in good form. Of course he was a diligent worker as well.
"He is very much a team player and had the ability to bring people along with him. He's a man of great common sense and a man of great energy as well. I think the Department is very lucky to get him. If anybody is capable of doing the job, he's certainly the one.
"He would be taking this on on the basis that he could make change. It's certainly not for his ego, because he hasn't one."
AND HE WILL want to make changes, for he hasn't been behind the door in criticising conditions at Crumlin, for example, or in criticising what he termed as a "turf war" among the State's three children's hospitals, which resulted in a much-needed consultant post remaining vacant for seven years. He said that, rather than confront vested interests, the Department of Health had decided to send children needing complex urology surgery to the UK, which was "absolutely ridiculous".
He is also known to have expressed concern about the health service rewarding inefficiency rather than performance.
This being the case, the HSE may finally have found the candidate needed to drive its long-talked-about health service reforms.
He has, says Dr Brady, both the determination and the management skills to deliver. Let's hope he is right.
Who is he? Hospital consultant Prof Brendan Drumm
Why is he in the news?
This week the Health Service Executive selected him as its first chief executive, making him responsible for the day-to-day running of the health service and its €11 billion annual budget.
Most appealing characteristic
Down-to-earth, straight-talking doctor who has a word for everyone
Least appealing characteristic
Yet to be revealed
Most likely to say
We need to work together to improve this health service right now.
Least likely to say
I hate new challenges