Rate My Professor John McFarland

Professor John McFarland serves as Professor of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine within the Faculty of Education and Health Sciences at the University of Limerick. He earned his MB BCh BAO from Trinity College Dublin in 1998, followed by basic specialist training in medicine in the Mid-West region and basic specialist training in psychiatry through the Royal College of Surgeons scheme in Dublin, attaining Membership of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (MRCPsych). He completed three years at the Clinical Neuroimaging Lab in NUI Galway, where he obtained his MD in 2011 investigating the neurobiology of early psychosis. Additional qualifications include a Diploma in Health Services Management from the University of Limerick in 2011 and a Masters in Health Professionals Education from the same institution in 2022. Since 2012, he has worked as a Consultant Psychiatrist in the Mid-West, assuming the role of Clinical Lead for the Early Intervention in Psychosis Clinical Programme in 2013. In 2018, he joined the University of Limerick as Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry, leading curriculum development efforts and co-editing the textbook Problem Based Psychiatry published by Elsevier in 2020. He currently holds the positions of Vice-Dean for Postgraduate Training in Psychiatry with the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland since 2021, Dean of the UL-Midwest Deanery, and senior member of the National Postgraduate Training Committee and Accreditation Sub-Committee of the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland.

Professor McFarland's research interests include the neuropsychiatry of delirium in collaboration with the Cognitive Impairment Research Group at the University of Limerick, the neurobiology of psychotic illness, augmented models of psychiatric care, and evaluations of undergraduate and postgraduate psychiatric education. His contributions appear in numerous peer-reviewed publications, such as 'Comparison of cognitive and neuropsychiatric profiles in hospitalised elderly medical patients with delirium, dementia and comorbid delirium–dementia' (BMJ Open, 2016, co-authored with Leonard et al.), 'Exploration of GP perspectives on deprescribing antidepressants: a qualitative study' (BMJ Open, 2021, co-authored with Kelly et al.), 'How do delirium motor subtypes differ in phenomenology and contributory aetiology?' (BMJ Open, 2021, co-authored with Glynn et al.), and 'Progressive brain atrophy and cortical thinning in schizophrenia after commencing clozapine treatment' (Neuropsychopharmacology, 2015, co-authored with Ahmed et al.). These works address key aspects of neuropsychiatric phenomena and clinical interventions in psychiatry.