Book Review

“You know you are desperate when you are actually looking at a second-hand monkey ventilator and thinking, is there any way we can use this?” It is a line worthy of a JG Ballard novel – 22nd century survivor of ecological disaster scours dystopian cityscape for booty – but it was spoken in March 2020…

Many years ago, a physician with whom I trained stopped in the middle of award round, turned to the assembled team and made one of his occasionalpronouncements. “Modern medicine,” he proclaimed, “is an extraordinary mix of breath-taking efficiency and heart-stopping absurdity. In the no-man’s land between these extremes, medicine happens. I have no idea how…

What is “wellness”? Is it a new-fangled concept or one with ancient roots? Is this generation the first to positively describe a state of wellness, as opposed to simply not being ill? And how can we achieve wellness, rather than simply avoiding the various pitfalls and disasters that lie in our paths? For all the…

Geriatricians always make me uneasy; the uneasiness being a mixture of respect and awe. They know too much, not just the scientific stuff, they also seem to know a lot about the past, coolly assess the present and,this being the spooky bit, divine the future. It is not enough to cure the presenting complaint and…

I always flick through the pages of a new book in search of an eye-catching phrase and I quickly found this zinger: as a schoolboy Anthony Clare made “…occasional trips to Northern Ireland where he acquired a taste for Bounty bars…”. Raised in Northern Ireland, where I too acquired a taste for Bounty bars, here…

Title: The Language of Illness Author: Fergus Shanahan Publisher: Liberties Press (2020)Reviewer: Prof Brendan Kelly The practice of medicine is a largely narrative endeavour. People come to doctors with a dizzying array of problems, symptoms, worries, and fears. Each person tells their story. We listen. We try to understand their narrative and see how it…

At the outset I should declare some potential conflicts of interest. I have long been a proponent of immunisation. I have chaired the national immunisation advisory committee at the RCPI. I have run a so-called ‘high-risk’ vaccination clinic at Children’s Hospital Temple Street for concerned parents and general practitioners over several years during the MMR…

TITLE: Notes from An Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back AUTHOR: Mark O’Connell PUBLISHER: Granta Publications (2020) REVIEWER: Prof Brendan Kelly The Covid-19 pandemic changed everything. Or did it? There is no doubt that the outbreak, which started in China in late 2019, turned our world upside down within…

Title: Catching the worm: Towards ending river blindness and reflections on my life Author: Prof William C Campbell, with Claire O’Connell Publisher: Royal Irish Academy Reviewer: Prof Seamus O’Mahony Prof William Cecil Campbell is the only Irishman to have been awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. He and Satoshi Ōmura shared the award…