University of Limerick Alumni Spotlight: Lesley Doyle

Can you tell me a bit about yourself? 

I grew up in Bray, Co Wicklow but now live a little bit further up the East Coast/DART line near the sea in North Co Dublin. I enjoy travelling to new places, both within Ireland and abroad. I’ve been watching Formula 1 racing with my family since I was a teenager and have been lucky enough to attend a few race weekends, which are always special events.

Why did you choose to study Speech and Language Therapy at UL?

UL is the only university in Ireland to offer a professional speech and language therapy qualification as a postgraduate course rather than an undergraduate course. The postgraduate option appealed to me as I was a mature student at the stage when I decided SLT was a career I would like to pursue.

What did you enjoy most about the course?

Covering what is typically 3–4 years of coursework within a 2-year Masters course as well as multiple clinical placements is very intense, but the camaraderie among classmates was a real plus and helped make it achievable. Our classes started by doing joint lectures and assignments with the Occupational Therapy Masters students, which fostered an early understanding of the role of other professionals within a healthcare team and the importance of multidisciplinary working. Another major bonus was that for my acute hospital placement, I was one of six students in the year who got the opportunity to complete the placement in a hospital in New York, which was facilitated by the university and their healthcare connections.

What did you enjoy about UL? What is student life like here?

It is a beautiful campus with lots of green to offset the buildings. There are lots of social spots too for coffee or a chat. Also, it’s position on the edge of Limerick City makes it easy to access transport-wise and means that it has its own local feeling and ecosystem but is close enough to the city centre to have a vibrant student nightlife.

Are there any campus locations that hold special significance for you?

I had not lived on campus during my previous university experiences, so I decided to live in student accommodation during my first year at UL. I lived in Thomond Village the year it opened. The river walk that runs behind that student village stands out as a lovely place to switch off from the demands of college life.

How did UL support you throughout your studies?

The academic staff were very knowledgeable in their fields and always approachable. In my second year, my housemates and I needed to unexpectedly move accommodation at short notice. We were offered support from the department to help with finding new accommodation and the disruption it caused to coursework was acknowledged. I was very thankful that Professor Sue Franklin supported me in my final year project about the voice strain of lecturers.

Were you a member of any clubs or societies? If so, tell us about your experience.

I didn’t officially join any clubs but I made the most of the amenities on campus by attending lots of events in the University Concert Hall (with student discounts on ticket prices) and live band events in the Stables. I also joined the Arena gym and attended fitness classes and swimming lessons on campus.

Tell me about your own career journey so far.

I started out as a staff-grade SLT in a busy acute hospital. My first role was purely communication-focused, where I developed communication passports and implemented speech and language rehabilitation programmes for people who were post-stroke.

At that time, training to manage dysphagia (swallowing difficulties) was not included in profession qualification training, so I completed a separate dysphagia training course. After that, I was fortunate to have rotation opportunities in neurosurgery, medicine for the elderly, neurology, and ENT. I became the senior SLT in neurology at Beaumont Hospital in 2010 and progressed to clinical specialist in 2019. The Neurology SLT role involved supporting patients with a mix of conditions, including acute issues like encephalitis, meningitis, Guillain-Barre, or progressive conditions such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and Huntington’s disease. Beaumont Hospital is the Irish national referral centre for motor neurone disease (MND), and that was always a large component of my neurology role. In 2020, Prof Orla Hardiman who heads the MND service in Beaumont, secured funding for the first time for a dedicated team of MND health and social care professionals (HSCPs). At that point, I moved into a role that was half-time MND and half-time general neurology. The role involves linking with other SLTs and HSCPs involved in the healthcare pathway, such as community teams, hospice teams, and assistive technology specialists, to ensure integrated care, so I got to link with lots of great SLTs around Ireland. SLTs have a key role in voice preservation through message and voice banking which is important to people with progressive neurological conditions. I worked on a collaborative SLT project to develop Irish resources for this intervention which led to organising and facilitating training courses and presenting research and outcomes at professional conferences.

What or who inspired you to pursue SLT?

I completed an undergraduate arts degree in Library Information Studies and Linguistics at UCD. The main career avenues in these subjects are working as a librarian, in the publishing industry, or in SLT. I initially went the publishing route and worked as an editor for an e-learning company based in Plassey Business Park which happened to be right next to UL. My job there was a mix of copy editing and checking that the individual modules within training courses were achieving the stated objectives. I had really great colleagues there, but working at a computer all day and never seeing the outcome of how the customers used the end product made me realise that I would prefer a career with more interaction on a human level. I really enjoyed the semantics and syntax aspects of my linguistics degree, which made me interested in communication and SLT as a profession.

I believe you are currently doing a PhD in the field of SLT. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

I am currently doing a PhD within the school of medicine at TCD within a programme called MIRANDA, which stands for Multidisciplinary Innovation and Research Advancing Neurological Care in a Digital Age. The programme is supporting five healthcare professionals to carry out PhD projects aiming to capitalise on new technologies to improve care for people with MND. It is funded by a HRB collaborative doctoral award in patient-focused research. The aim of these awards is to support teams of healthcare professionals to work together to advance research in their clinical area and then translate the findings directly back into clinical practice, resulting in better patient care. My project is investigating how digital health technology could be used to precisely assess speech and swallow function, which is important for people living with a diagnosis of MND for two main reasons. First, MND is currently incurable with few specific treatments. Technologies could potentially be used in the future to provide evidence that newly developed drugs are having a positive impact on speech and swallow during clinical trials, so those drugs can get licensed for prescription. Second, technology has the potential to provide a way to monitor people from their own homes to reduce the number or length of their appointments at hospitals or research centres so they can spend their time and energy in more meaningful and enjoyable ways.

How have your studies at UL contributed to your career?

I am glad I found my way into SLT as a mature student. I went straight to work in a fast-paced acute hospital after I qualified, and I think the ethos of independent learning and the placements I had during the UL course helped prepare me for that setting. I also think the fact that all SLT students at UL have a bit of life experience before they start the course helped me to be a more holistic therapist and better prepared for the hospital environment and supporting people through the challenges they live with due to sometimes incurable medical diagnoses. 

Do you have any advice for those who might be considering a career in SLT?

SLT is a really varied career, there's lots of different settings and client groups, so find out as much as you can about all the options open to you. It is a great idea to ask if you can get some observational experience within an SLT department. If you have no previous healthcare experience, there are QQI Level 5 healthcare courses, including SLT, that provide training for working as an SLT assistant or as a steppingstone to applying to study for a professional SLT qualification.

Are there any lessons or insights you wish you had known when starting your career?

Placements help you practice clinical skills, but the real learning starts when you get your first job. Don’t fear temporary contracts because they can facilitate your experience in different settings and with different client groups early in your career and help you find out what type of clinical area is the best fit for you. Ask lots of questions at the beginning of your career when you are a novice, and then keep asking questions because you will never know it all. Sometimes, as a profession, we don’t yet know the answers to those questions, so there are lots of research opportunities in SLT.