Staff List

Sarah graduated in 1998 from UCD and since becoming a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 2001 and Irish College of GPs in 2008, Sarah now works as a lecturer in NUI Galway’s Donegal Medical Academy and a GP, and is mother to five boys.


Experiences of medicine, lecturing, mindfulness and mothering have helped Sarah develop an interest in pregnancy, birthing and breastfeeding practices that promote optimised mother-infant dyad wellbeing and development. She has presented qualitative research exploring breastfeeding experiences of African mothers living in Ireland. She is a member the Donegal Breastfeeding Forum since 2014. She facilitates a Special Study Module in Infant Nutrition and which was presented at the ABM conference in 2018, and is developing an Undergraduate Breastfeeding Education Module. Through collaboration she hopes to build NUI Galway capacity for research in Human Milk Science and around Breastfeeding. She is working on research to help increase institutional and governmental interest in creating a culture that promotes, protects and supports breastfeeding. She recently, along with GUH Arts trust, HRB Mother and Child and the Athena SWAN SAT, organised the CREATE exhibition to come to GUH, CSI and research institutes.


She also has an interest in mindfulness and its capacity to optimise well-being among Medical students, mothers and the whole community. She is a member of the Mindful Way @ NUI Galway and delivers shared mindfulness practice in Donegal. Sarah co-developed the Mindfulness Special Study Module in 2017, which will form the basis of a School of Medicine well-being module. She is currently pursuing a Masters in Mindfulness with a view to teaching mindfulness to students and pregnant moms with a view to researching its effect on medical students' and mothers’ well-being, delivery outcomes, breastfeeding implicit bias and initiation rates.