Professor Cathal O’Donnell
Clinical Director, National Ambulance Service
Professor O’Donnell is the Clinical Director for the National Ambulance Service. A medical graduate of University College Cork, Cathal completed his Emergency Medicine training in a number of Irish hospitals in Cork and Dublin, and subsequently completed a Clinical Fellowship in Emergency Medicine and Emergency Medical Services at the University of Toronto in 2005. During this time, he worked with Toronto EMS and the Ontario Air Ambulance Base Hospital Programme and also worked in St Michaels Hospital and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in the city.
On completion of this, he returned to Ireland to take up a post as Consultant in Emergency Medicine at University Hospital Limerick. Cathal became the National Ambulance Service Medical Director in 2011. Cathal has completed an MSc in Leadership at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). In 2017, Cathal was appointed Adjunct Clinical Professor in Emergency Medicine at the Graduate Entry Medical School, University of Limerick.
As Clinical Director for the National Ambulance Service, Professor O’Donnell is ideally positioned to ensure that the outcomes of the research can be translated into practice and have a direct influence on the prehospital configuration and patient care.