Retired doctor’s latest chapter

Lifestyle – Dr Vivian Brennan worked as a GP in Athenry for nearly 40 years, catering for patients in a semi-rural practice at a time of great change. He drew on that experience for his debut book, a funny, sad, poignant, and wise collection. It’s populated by characters who are very real while all being fictional, as he tells JUDY MURPHY.

Early in their marriage, Dr Vivian Brennan’s wife, Anne, suggested he should write a book about his many experiences as a GP.  An excellent man to tell a story, he was practising in a semi-rural area which had many great characters, so her recommendation made sense.

Anne, who was also a doctor, worked alongside Vivian in their practice in Athenry until they retired in 2010. Shortly afterwards, Vivian embarked a course in creative writing to hone his storytelling skills.

The result is I Won’t Keep You a Minute Doctor: Tales from an Irish General Practice which has just been published. It’s a book that manages to be laugh-out-loud funny, while also containing moments of real sadness and trauma. It’s wise and compassionate too, although definitely not rose-tinted. Vivian’s chapter about one hypochondriac patient perfectly captures the frustration of a busy GP who is all too aware that his time is being wasted. It’s a hilarious and toe-curling account of a patient – known in the profession as a ‘heartsink patient’ – who counters his every medical reassurance by producing yet another mystery condition. Nothing can stop her, not even the urgent need to visit the bank before it closes for the day. Other doctors might have been more clinical in dismissing her, but managing appointments was something Vivian was never great at, he says with a rueful laugh.

It’s easy see why, because Vivian is highly sociable.

Sitting in an old-style room of his period home in Athenry, he entertains and educates in equal measure.

It’s filled with family memorabilia, including photos of Anne and their children. She became ill in 2017 and passed away in 2018. Although Vivian’s book was well-advanced at that stage, everything stopped for a time after her death.

“I hadn’t the heart for much,” he says simply. “But she wouldn’t have approved of that.”

Knowing that Anne wanted him to complete it spurred him on. His friend Francis Kennedy-Beirne came on board as illustrator, having originally been asked to design the front cover. Francis’s vibrant drawings are perfect complement to Vivian’s animated writing style. Each colourful drawing features the doctor in his bow tie, no matter what the circumstances. One has him sitting with a patient in a flea-ridden cottage where the toxic insecticide DDT was employed liberally.

The impression is of a composed, kind man who treated everyone equally. And as Vivian recalls the bachelor farmer, Jack, and his dog, Bismarck, who feature in that particular chapter, it’s clear the regard he had for this patient. Never mind that visiting Jack caused nocturnal trauma at home, with Vivian scratching himself continually in bed in the nights that followed. It’s a wonderful insight into an Ireland that no longer exists.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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