Leading with Hearts and Minds

The personal and professional leadership journey of a senior leader - Paul Gallagher, Regional Director of Nursing and Midwifery

Leading with Hearts and Minds

Show Notes

Mr Paul Gallagher, Regional Director of Nursing and Midwifery, HSE Dublin and the South East, shares the experiences, insights, and lessons he has learned throughout his life that have shaped him into the leader he is today. Paul offers an honest account of the influences, opportunities, and challenges that impacted his career choice and professional journey and led him to his current role.

Throughout this podcast, Paul reflects on and shares some resources he uses when leading a complex and uncertain system.

Whether you are starting your career or coming close to retirement, Paul’s story supports the listener in considering the joys, disappointments, connections, and successes of a professional who is proud to be the nurse leader he is today.

More from Leading with Hearts and Minds

Sep 28, 2026

To date, the NCLC podcast series Leading with Hearts and Minds has given listeners worldwide the chance to hear personal and professional leadership experiences from people working in healthcare and other sectors.

Aug 31, 2026

Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda became the second hospital in Ireland to achieve Pathway to Excellence — the international accreditation recognising nursing excellence, workplace culture, and shared decision-making.

Aug 10, 2026

St James's Hospital became the first hospital in Ireland to achieve Pathway to Excellence — an international accreditation from the American Nurses Credentialing Centre that recognises a genuinely positive working environment for nurses.

Jul 13, 2026

Petrina Donnelly has spent thirty-three years in nursing, from a hospital ward in Craigavon to one of Ireland's new Regional Director of Nursing and Midwifery posts. Ask how she got there, and the answer is rarely a plan — it's a series of people who encouraged her to take the next step before she felt ready. She talks to Marie Kilduff about the mentors who shaped her, what it's actually like to lead a brand-new region with no map and no handover, her vision for a genuinely integrated health service, and how a senior leader keeps going without running herself down, with a returning contribution from her former colleague Paul Gallagher, recorded before his retirement.

May 18, 2026

What does it take to nurse someone whose privacy is gone, whose environment magnifies every symptom, and whose relationship with the health system has, until now, been broken or absent? Enda Kelly has spent more than three decades finding out.

See all episodes →