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Muiris Houston

Muiris Houston

Dr Muiris Houston is an award-winning medical journalist and health analyst with The Irish Times. A practising GP and occupational physician, he especially values the stories patients tell about illness. He contributes to national radio and TV. He lectures at NUIGalway and the University of Limerick and is himself studying for a Master's degree in Medical Humanities at the University of Sydney, Australia. The commute is a killer! (joke). Aviation geek and fishing nut in his spare time.

Medical Matters: It is the doctor’s job to be professional – so why is this being neglected in modern healthcare?

The Savita Halappanavar case teaches us a lot about medicine’s professional standards

Savita Halappanavar: the chairman of the review group which investigated Ms Halappanavar’s death said there is also a need to ensure that not only the life but the health of the mother can be protected in pregnancy.
Is there a grey area in determining risk to the mother?

Despite protocols and guidelines, medicine is as much art as science

“Failing to devise and follow a plan of care for this patient” is a fairly damning indictment of the healthcare professionals who looked after Ms Halappanavar. Photograph: Eric Luke
Medical view: Focus on basics of care likely to help save lives

Recommendations in Savita report designed to improve standards

Medical Matters: Proportion of oral cancers being linked to HPV is growing

Medical Matters: Take a deep breath and keep your asthma under control

A man, wearing a surgical mask as a precautionary measure against the novel coronavirus, pays for medicine at a hospital pharmacy in Khobar city in Dammam. Photograph: Reuters/Stringer (Saudi Arabia)
Are we facing a new major virus scare?

Two recently emergent viruses present two distinct challenges for global healthcare

Screening for abdominal aortic aneurysms should reduce death rate

Medical Matters: We need a calm approach to breakthrough for treatment of patients with chronic low-back pain

While the risk of developing ovarian or breast cancer in women with either the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes varies from individual to individual, on average that risk is of the order of 65 per cent. Photograph: Mark Thomas/Science Photo Library
Women with family history of breast cancer should consider genetic testing

The risk of disease is usually about 65 per cent for women who carry the genes

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