Dr Garrett FitzGerald ponders the rise in crime and harks back to an earlier time, when the men in black ruled with an iron hand Talk to Joe! Well, the citizens of my home town took up the invitation recently. Joe never heard the beat of it. You wouldn’t see the like of it in [...]
I was just thinking about the fate of the short story in Ireland. A friend of mine is looking for a university-based creative writing course, because he’s interested in writing short stories. I told him he should try to find one that won’t treat him like a fool, that will demand he learn the masters… [...]
Dr Sean Callan reports from the 2009 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society meeting in Chicago on the financial stimulus being given to medical informatics in the US. The recent American Reinvestment and Recovery Act – better known as President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package — has ignited one of the largest races for riches [...]
Thecla Scully writes that the futuristic days of Pixar’s Wall-E may be closer in medicine than we think. Pixar’s latest brain child, Wall-E, was inspired by a question: what if mankind evacuated earth and forgot to turn off the last remaining robot? Designed to clean up rubbish on a waste laden earth emotionally charged Wall-E [...]
Rory Hafford continues his medical communications series with an illuminating look at truth and lies. Navajo Indians hold strongly to their beliefs. For instance, they believe that language and thought can shape reality. They also believe that if you give voice to something, you can end up influencing future events. When it comes to folklore [...]
Dr Cliodhna Foley Nolan on the relationship between antibiotics in animal feed and AMR in humans. We have tended to associate antimicrobial resistance (usually antibiotic resistance) with overcrowded hospitals, poor hand-washing and over-prescribing by medical clinicians. However, it is clear that there is also a causal relationship between antimicrobial use in food, animals and human [...]
Dr Brendan Kelly writes that the economic downturn makes investing in mental health even more pressing — for both patients and society as a whole. The next few years are likely to see a much more considered approach to healthcare spending in Ireland. There is likely to be increased emphasis on value for money and [...]
Dr Mick Molloy wonders just where the savings are to be made by cutting back on elective surgery and if we are still in the business of healing the sick, at all. Nobody knows what effect the current budgetary scenario will have this year, let alone the next. Multi-annual budgeting, a concept we thought would [...]
Dr Paul Stewart recently rediscovered the story of Thomas P. Kelley, Canada’s king of the old-fashioned medicine men and inventor of the classic ‘pie-in-the-face’ gag. Dr Quirkey’s Good Time Emporium on Dublin’s O’Connell Street was a place I passed last week which, I gathered, was some sort of amusement arcade. (I have since noticed that [...]
The scientific sessions at the Irish Medical Organisation’s agm are becoming stronger each year and this year was no exception. A ‘must-see’ this year for sports enthusiasts was the session on ‘The role of Medicine in Sport’. Chaired by Irish Medical Times columnist and sometime pugilist Dr Mick Molloy, the session gave a great insight [...]
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