Aidan O’Reilly, IHCA Senior Executive, gives an update on some current issues facing consultants, including moves on open disclosure, health insurance schedules and pension concerns.

Donal Duffy, Assistant Secretary General of the IHCA, explains why the Association is undertaking detailed research into the growing problem of work-related stress among consultants.

New consultant pay scale terms represent a 20 per cent salary cut on a like-for-like basis after four years in post, IHCA Secretary General Martin Varley writes, adding that “they fail to deliver parity even after nine years”.

In many specialties Ireland has only half the number of specialists we need, IHCA President Dr Gerard Crotty writes, adding that this shortage of consultants results in excessive workloads, which make consultant posts increasingly unattractive to recently trained specialists.

Lloyd Mudiwa gives a blow-by-blow account of what went on behind the scenes leading up to the Irish Medical Council’s decision to accredit RCSI-Medical University Bahrain.

Dear Editor, We are a closed Facebook group with 150 Irish members, all mothers of very sick children.

Dr Ruairi Hanley has finally tracked down the best steak tartare he has ever eaten outside of France, and becomes all bullish about some of our culinary exploits.

Dr Niall Conroy, an Irish doctor coming to the end of his work in Nepal, writes about his experience practising neonatal and paediatric medicine as part of the post-earthquake response as a VSO volunteer in the South Asian country.

Scientists at Trinity College Dublin have shed light on a fundamental mechanism underlying the development of Alzheimer’s disease, which could lead to new forms of therapy for those with the condition.

Blocking the means of suicide, for example by installing barriers and safety nets, at suicide hotspots can significantly reduce the number of deaths at these sites by more than 90 per cent, new research published in The Lancet Psychiatry Journal has found.