Finished January 6
A Dublin Student Doctor by Patrick Taylor, read by John Keating
This is the third novel I've listened to in the Irish Country series. The others are An Irish Country Girl, an An Irish Country Doctor. There are others in the series I haven't read yet.
Patrick Taylor was born and grew up in Ireland and became a doctor there. He now lives in B.C.
This novel features Doctor Fingal O'Reilly. Dr. O'Reilly is driving home from the races in 1965 when he comes across an accident. One of his patients has crashed his motorcycle.
Dr. O'Reilly accompanies him in the ambulance to the hospital, and falls into reminiscences of his medical student days in Dublin. The novel becomes a tales of those days in the mid 1930s.
Dr. O'Reilly overcame his father's objections and other hardships to become a doctor. He studied at Trinity College and Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital. During those student days he made lifelong friends with 3 other medical students and romanced a nursing student, Kitty O'Hallorhan. The novel shows the extent of medical education at the time, the social situation in Dublin, and gives insight into the character of O'Reilly, who has been featured in the other novels in this series.
This novel is one where the characters are well-developed and the story of a life is shown deeply. A great read.
This book counted toward the Canadian Book Challenge and the Global Reading Challenge.
ReplyDeleteThanks for including your review in the European Reading Challenge as well!
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