Dr. Michael O'Dowd

ABOUT THE COMPILER AND EDITOR

Doctor Michael O’Dowd graduated from the National University of Ireland, Galway in 1967. After post-graduate experience in Belfast he became a specialist in obstetrics and gynaecology, and holds a research Doctorate in Medicine, a PhD in History, and post-graduate qualifications in Anaesthesia and Paediatrics.

Formerly National Chair of The Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Dublin, he is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland Dublin, Fellow Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists London, Fellow Royal Society of Medicine London, and Honorary Fellow Indian College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

His books, the self-penned The History of Medications for Women, and The History of Obstetrics and Gynaecology co-authored with Dr Elliot Philipp, are academic texts.

Charlotte Brontė. An Irish Odyssey by Dr O’Dowd was published in 2021. The non-fiction book relates the story of Charlotte Brontė and the Reverend Arthur Bell Nicholls who married in her home town of Haworth in June 1854, and is a celebration of their wedding trip and Irish Odyssey. The newlyweds’ four week honeymoon was spent in Ireland after a stop-over in Wales.

The Scarlet Ribbon Series which was published in 2021 was co-authored with his daughter Katy as Derry O’Dowd and follows the historically based but fictional life of a surgeon man-midwife in the eighteenth century. The Scarlet Ribbon (first book in the series), The Map of Tenderness, The Bella Donna, The Ghost Gene and Mother Quinn’s Recipes complete the historical series.

The editor’s research interests are the histories of anaesthesia, midwifery, obstetrics, gynaecology, and conventional and alternative women’s medicine.