ANNUAL REVIEW master Final3a - St Vincent's University Hospital

St. Vincent’s Healthcare Group Limited - Annual Review 2007
Department - Medicine
Department of Neurology
The Department of Neurology has continued to substantially expand in 2007. We still have only two
Consultants, Professor Michael Hutchinson and Dr. Niall Tubridy and we have applied for at least two more
to continue the progressive service development.
Marguerite Duggan, our Multiple Sclerosis Nurse Specialist, continues to provide an excellent service for
people with MS and has been joined by our CNM, Heather Kevelighan, as Parkinson’s Nurse Specialist.
Heather is running the new Parkinson’s Clinics and is providing a great service for our patients in this area.
Dr Graham Hughes, Consultant in Care of the Elderly with a special interest in Parkinson’s Disease, has also
joined the Clinic recently and is a most welcome addition to our expanding service.
Paula Halpin (Departmental Secretary) has helped bring a greater deal of cohesion and deals with a huge
amount of phone calls from concerned patients and relatives daily.
Katie Doyle joined us in 2007 and has done a huge amount of background work in addition to her regular
work as the Neurology Research Nurse. She has been integral to our studies in epidemiology in MS and in HSP.
Sinead Jordan also joined the Team in 2007 and has continued the work in MS Treatment Trials and in
organisation of our research in MS. We are now participating in a number of new trials with oral therapies in
MS and have gradually increased the numbers of people with MS who have access to Tysabri as a result of
her work.
Drs. Roisin Lonergan (MS Research) and David Bradley (Dystonia Research) have been an integral part of
the Neurology Service and without them the twice-daily clinics would not have been feasible. In addition, both
have been extremely productive in their first year of research with numerous presentations at National and
International meetings.
Dr. Margaret O’Brien has also played a critical role in developing the clinical research in MS and her work
on OAS in MS has already received many plaudits.
Dr. Jean Fletcher is working on a joint project in Multiple Sclerosis with the Department of Immunology at
Trinity College under the supervision of Professor Kingston Mills. She has funding from the SFI for the next
three years
The Neurology Ward (in-patients)
Eilish Funge, the Clinical Nurse Manager continues to run a great ward and shares our aims to improve all
aspects of the in-patient services. Only patients with the most complex problems are admitted to the ward.
These patients require skilled, high-intensity nursing and multidisciplinary care from Physiotherapy,
Occupational Therapy and Speech and Language Therapy. Many can no longer be managed at home or
need special advice about aids at home from these team members and from the Social Work Department.
There is a great team spirit in the Department of Neurology with regular multidisciplinary meetings, radiology
meetings, the Journal Club and up-date meetings about recent advances, new therapies and techniques.
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