Dr Muiris Houston

With overdiagnosis and overtreatment established features of modern medicine, Dr Muiris Houston examines the dangers of this for patients and society, and wonders how best to manage unexplained symptoms.

It’s not just Irish doctors becoming disillusioned with their lot, as a crop of new books on the US health system has revealed to Dr Muiris Houston.

The increasingly ‘out of control’ Ebola outbreak will help to highlight the great self-sacrifice doctors make daily in the line of duty, writes Dr Muiris Houston.

While it must be respected, the ballot result against holding an investigation into the management of the IMO prior to the departure of George McNeice will continue the erosion of public confidence in the union and in doctors generally, believes Dr Muiris Houston.

From holy toast, slippery bananas and some unusually probiotic sausages, this year’s Ig Nobel awards on the theme of food proved to be interesting fare for Dr Muiris Houston.

With a real danger of over-medicalisation and new ‘diseases’ perhaps being driven by the pharmaceutical industry, Dr Muiris Houston reflects on the nature of illness and disease, and asks whether the latter can be viewed as being socially constructed.

Elucidating the whistleblower’s predicament, Dr Muiris Houston says to have to blow the whistle is a hard and lonely path he wouldn’t wish on any colleague.

Dr Muiris Houston agrees that e-cigarettes will ‘probably’ cause a lower disease burden than cigarettes — although no long-term data is yet available — and believes they may have a limited role to play in smoking cessation.

With anti-doctor sentiment rife in a Britain served up by a hyperbolic diet of Daily Mail headlines, Dr Muiris Houston questions whether it is the UK education system that is to blame for ill-informed patients.

What does your name say about you? According to a new book, if you dig beneath a name you will find out about the owner’s true identity, writes Dr Muiris Houston.