My Working Day:Time is of the essence for Prof Geraldine McCarthy, who heads up the Catherine McAuley School of Nursing and Midwifery at University College Cork
As professor and head of nursing at UCC, I am based on campus but live in Blarney, 8km from college. I start my day with a coffee at 7am and arrive at work at 8am. I finish around 6pm but often work for another two-three hours at home in the evenings, mostly on my research or publications.
I am also often elsewhere and you will usually find me one day a week on the Cork to Dublin train reading relentlessly and catching up on office work. The business of the day determines the length of that day.
I manage the school activities through 14 programme directors and a school manager. We have 1,350 students, a permanent staff of 60 and have established new courses each year since the inception of the school in 1994. In addition, I research, prepare publications and conference papers and I lecture about four hours per week, mostly on research methods.
I supervise research at MSc and PhD levels. I represent the school or the faculty on a number of university-wide committees so my work entails attending or chairing meetings. I am normally and continuously on at least one HSE body and am presently also a ministerial nominee on HIQA, a statutory body established earlier this year for whom I presently chair a group establishing national standards for infection control and prevention.
For one week each year, I work in clinical practice. This short exposure keeps me informed of practice initiatives and I wish the time was available to work more with patients during the year.
There is no typical day in my job - there is always variety. I may take the train to Dublin arriving around 9.15am or be at my office desk at 8am. The major activities I engage in relate to answering e-mails and other correspondence, lecturing, holding work meetings with a variety of staff or other persons, attending college or health service meetings and undertaking research supervisory sessions with students.
I write documents, review finances, participate in planning sessions for new courses, interview people for posts, discuss staff and student-related issues or host visitors to the school. I may spend some time with my research assistant reading a draft of a paper or giving instructions for research work to be conducted or drafting a research bid with colleagues.
Most days I bring in some food for lunch but like to get out of my office, so sometimes I go to get coffee with colleagues and have a chat. I could not get through my normal days without the assistance of my efficient and dependable PA, Therese. I am usually home by 6pm but then get in a few hours' work. I watch the 9pm news and retire soon afterwards with a good book and the daily newspapers. Lights out are around midnight.
Balancing the different elements of my role - management, research and lecturing - is not an easy task. The most difficult thing for me is to say "no" when an opportunity or challenge arises - but I am learning.
There is no one part of the job easier than others. I love reading the amount of literature which is required and assisting students with research endeavours. I also find lecturing easy. I suppose when you have a post which challenges you, you reap the rewards and I find most elements of my job easy. The only thing needed to improve the area I work in is more time.
In conversation with Michelle McDonagh