Speakers at #WiMINConference23
Dr Jules Montague
Doctor Jules Montague is an author, journalist, BBC Radio 4 presenter and former consultant neurologist.
She graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, before completing her internship at AMNCH and then her SHO years at Beaumont Hospital. She went on to do a PhD in cognition at Trinity College.
In 2009, she moved to London where she became a consultant neurologist. She writes for the Guardian, Observer, BBC and others, with a particular interest in investigative stories. She has reported from Mozambique on HIV, from India on climate change, and from Moria refugee camp in Greece on trauma in children.
Her investigative stories led to one of the world’s biggest tech companies withdrawing a misleading series of advertisements, and international corporations retracting deceptive, pseudoscientific claims on stem cell therapy.
Her first book ‘Lost and Found’ was published internationally in 2018 and explored what remains of the person when the pieces of their mind go missing - from dementia and brain injury to sleep disorders and multiple personality disorder. ‘The Imaginary Patient’, published in 2022, explored how the practice of medical diagnosis is tainted by the forces of imperialism, politics, discrimination and Big Pharma. Her books have been featured on BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 3, RTE, Sky News, and in the Guardian, Telegraph, Sunday Times, and Irish Times.
Her recent BBC Radio 4 series was called Dementia: Unexpected Stories of the Mind.
Dr Monica Peres Oikeh
Dr Monica Peres Oikeh is a GP working in Cork.
She attended Trinity College Dublin.While in college, she was part of the SUAS society, helping refugees with their transition to Ireland and learning English language. She was also a mentor with the student-to-student programme helping First Year medical students settle into college. She was the Secretary of the Afro-Caribbean Society in TCD for two years. All of these extra-curricular activities earned her a place in Trinity College Dean’s Roll of Honour in 2012 and 2013.
She graduated college in 2014 and was the only black-Irish graduate in her year. She did her internship between Cork and Kerry and then moved to Tipperary where she worked as an SHO in general medicine.
She applied to the General Practice Scheme, as this has been a specialty she has been interested in ever since she spent some time in a GP practice in Donegal as a medical student, and entered the Cork GP Scheme in 2016. She worked in various specialties as part of her training, followed by two years as a GP Registrar.
During this time she developed a special interest in women’s health and has a significant online profile where she promotes health awareness in general: @blondieperes
She graduated as a GP in July 2020 and was the only black-Irish graduate on the scheme. She hopes that there will be more diversity in general practice in Ireland.
She is a regular contributor on medical matters on Virgin Media’s IrelandAM show and has also presented a women's health series on RTE. She was the recent winner of the 2023 Hayu Wellness InstaStar Award, and has been named in the Irish Examiner's 100 Women of 2022 and 2023.
Professor Suzanne Crowe
Professor Suzanne Crowe is the President of the Irish Medical Council.
She qualified from Trinity College Dublin in 1995 and after interning in the Meath and Adelaide Hospitals, commenced postgraduate training in Anaesthesia with the College of Anaesthetists in Ireland.
On completion of training in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care in 2004, she worked as a Fellow in Paediatric Intensive Care at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne and finished her Masters in Perioperative Care.
Her career then took her to Tallaght Hospital in Dublin, where she was a Consultant Anaesthetist with a special interest in Paediatrics for 9 years. In 2014 she took up a post in Paediatric Intensive Care in Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital/CHI Crumlin.
She is Associate Clinical Professor in Women and Children’s Medicine section in UCD, and Senior Lecturer in paediatrics in TCD.
Her clinical and academic interests are in Bereavement Studies, Palliative Care in PICU and the psychological impact of caring in healthcare.
She has a significant interest in improving children and young people’s access to health and social services. She is a Board Trustee for LGBT Ireland, Cheshire Ireland and the Down Syndrome Centre.
Dr Sumi Dunne
Dr Sumi Dunne, BSc (Hons), BM, MICGP MSc, FFSEM graduated from the University of Southampton, U.K. She undertook Neonatal Intensive Care and Emergency Department Paediatrics training before undertaking Specialist General Practice (GP) at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). Since then, she has maintained both an academic and clinical career in General Practice, working as a Lecturer in the Department of General Practice RCSI and as a GP in Portarlington, County Laois.
In her clinical, academic and other professional activities, Sumi has developed a particular interest in GP Wellbeing, Teen Health and Women’s Health. She believes strongly in the need for clinician leadership, and completed a Master’s in Leadership at RCSI together with being a member of the RCSI Human Research and Ethics Committee. Her advocacy for medical students continues as a member of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee at RCSI. For her work in health and well-being, Sumi was awarded a Fellowship of the Faculty of Sports Medicine, RCSI. Sumi is also a GP Trainer with the Irish START group of General Practice abortion providers.
Sumi regularly contributes to GP articles in various media outlets, and is currently the GP with Newstalk’s Lunchtime Live ‘Ask the Doc’. Sumi has been the GP expert on RTE’s Operation Transformation since 2019.
Dr Anna Marie Naughton
Dr Anna Marie Naughton is a GP with the Adult Homeless Integrated Team (AHIT) in Cork Kerry Community Healthcare.
She previously worked largely as a locum, usually for single-handed female GPs.She continued to study, completing the ICGP diabetes and musculoskeletal modules.
She began working as a GP with the HSE’s Adult Homeless Integrated team in Cork City in 2014. It is a busy complex job with a very vulnerable group. Working with a multidisciplinary team combining primary care, addiction and mental health professionals, Dr Naughton provides GP care in clinics onsite in two of the Cork City Centre emergency shelters and also to rough sleepers in Cork City. She has completed the ICGP substance misuse course and training in Motivational interviewing. She has also been involved in delivering teaching to medical students, psychology students and GP trainees. She has been a key organiser of the last four Irish Street Medicine Symposia.
She presented at the FEANTSA Policy Conference 2022: Towards a Vision for Ending Homelessness. FEANTSA is the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless and is the only European NGO focusing exclusively on the fight against homelessness.
An interest in adverse childhood experience and the impact of trauma on health led to an academic partnership with Dr Sharon Lambert, Applied Psychology, UCC, researching and delivering training in trauma informed care.
Dr Naughton was involved in the recent update of the ICGP’s guide on the Management of Domestic Violence and Abuse. She is member of the Deep End Ireland group of GPs who work with disadvantaged communities.
Dr Doireann O’Leary
Dr Doireann O’Leary is a GP and health communicator from Cork. She graduated with an honours medical degree from UCC medical school in 2011 and went on to do her internship and the medical scheme in CUH, rotating through specialties including cardiology, infectious diseases, rheumatology and geriatrics.
Before embarking on GP training she did one year as a medical registrar and registrar in geriatrics.
Doireann enrolled in the Cork GP training program in 2005 rotating through Cork University Hospital, Mercy University Hospital and Cork University Maternity Hospital in specialties including gastroenterology, paediatrics, psychiatry and obstetrics and gynaecology. She was awarded MICGP in 2019.
Doireann now works as a GP in Cork City with a specialist interest in Women’s Health, and is a registered smear taker and LARC provider. She is also a lecturer and tutor in the Department of General Practice in UCC.
Whilst her true passion is general practice, she also has an interest in contributing to the media. Doireann has had regular slots on The Last Word on Today FM and The Today Show on RTE. She also shares her passion for women’s health on her own social media channels and the “Dr Doireann Podcast”. She has over 180,000 followers on Instagram.
Dr Máire Treasa Ní Cheallaigh
Dr Máire Treasa Ní Cheallaigh graduated from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 2022.
She holds a BA in Irish and Psychology and a Higher Diploma in Applied Communications from NUI Galway.
After more than ten years of working bilingually in radio and television for RTÉ and TG4, she returned to study psychology further focusing on sport, exercise and performance psychology and became a fully accredited Sport Ireland Institute Sport and Exercise Psychologist.
In 2018 she chose to take on another big challenge and returned to full-time education as a graduate-entry medical student at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
A native of Galway, Máire Treasa has worked as a journalist since 2005. She worked freelance in RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta, and in print media for a few years, until she began working full-time as a news coordinator and director for Nuacht TG4 in 2007. She then trained as a video-journalist and began producing and presenting her own reports for Nuacht RTÉ and TG4. She began working in the RTÉ newsroom in 2013. As an Irish speaker, Máire Treasa broadcasts in both Irish and in English. During the state visit of President Michael D. Higgins to the United Kingdom in 2014, she co-presented a live bilingual programme on RTÉ One from Windsor as Queen Elizabeth II received President Higgins.
She was appointed as GAA Reporter by RTÉ News and Current Affairs and in 2015 was awarded a GAA McNamee award for her contribution to GAA reporting in broadcast and in print.
She has extensive experience as an MC and public speaker. She hosted a sports psychology podcast called The Sports Psychologist and is a regular contributor to Newstalk's Off The Ball. She is also a qualified Pilates instructor.
Ms Alicia Hayes
Ms Alicia Hayes is a Barrister and works as a Case Manager at Medical Protection Society (Ireland). Alicia is a dual-qualified lawyer, across two jurisdictions. She qualified as a barrister in Ireland in July 2006, having completed her law degree at UCC. She then trained and worked in Ireland (mainly on the South Western Circuit) for 7 years before moving to the UK in 2013. She was called to the Bar of England and Wales (Middle Temple) in November of the same year. More recently, she completed her cross-qualification, and is due to be admitted to the Roll of Solicitors here in Ireland shortly.
Alicia joined Medical Protection Society, as a Legal Advisor based in the London office, in February 2019. She recently spent a year on secondment with the Irish Claims Team, before relocating back to her hometown of Limerick to take up her current role as Case Manager for the Ireland Team.
Before joining MPS, Alicia worked with a UK Patient Safety Charity, and then as a Senior Lawyer at Capsticks Solicitors LLP in London, which is one of the leading Defendant clinical negligence law firms in the UK.
Alicia graduated with Distinction (First Class Honours) in a Masters (MA) in Medical Law & Ethics, from King's College London (2014). She received the highest mark overall in her medical law class and her dissertation was chosen as an ‘exemplar' of excellent work.
Alicia, as part of a scholarship conferred by the Bar Council of Ireland, spent three months working as a “visiting attorney” with the lawyers at the Duke University branch of the Innocence Project, in North Carolina. The Innocence Project works to exonerate wrongfully convicted people, mainly through the use of DNA evidence. Two men were exonerated during her time at the project, one of whom was on death row.
Having worked exclusively in healthcare law for the last 10 years, Alicia has significant experience in all aspects of clinical negligence claims work, medical law, inquests and regulatory cases both in the UK and Ireland.
Ms Lisa Marmion
Lisa joined Safe Ireland in October 2017 as its Services Development Manager. Lisa brings a wealth of experience and knowledge of domestic violence, supporting victims of domestic violence and delivering strategic services in County Louth having worked previously with Women’s Aid Dundalk for 17 years most recently as its Services Manager for the past 6 years. Prior to that, Lisa worked for four years with Youth Work Ireland as a Peer Education and Youth Development Officer.
Lisa holds a BSc (Hons) Social Psychology from Ulster University Coleraine, an MSc Applied Psychology from Ulster University at Jordanstown and is currently completing a PhD with Trinity College Dublin tilted: Multiple Perspectives on father engagement in the context of Domestic Violence.
Lisa has a Certificate in Homeless Prevention and Intervention from Dublin City University and a Fetac Level 5 Community Addiction Studies from Urrús – Ireland’s Community Addiction Studies Training Centre. She lectures part-time in Dundalk Institute of Technology on the Certificate in Fundamentals in responding to Domestic Abuse (Level 8).
Dr Niamh Lynch
Dr Niamh Lynch graduated from University College Cork in 1998, with the James M O Donovan Medical Prize, The Pearson Medal for Surgery, and the John Kelly Prize for Clinical Surgery.
Dr Lynch began her paediatric training in Dublin in Temple St Children’s Hospital in 1999.
In 2003, Dr Lynch travelled to Kathmandu, Nepal, as a United Nations Volunteer. She spent the year working with UNICEF on a project working with local female leaders, from the remote foothills of the Himalayas to the crowded lowlands bordering India.
In 2005, Dr Lynch undertook a two-year paediatric neurology fellowship in Vancouver, Canada, and developed an interest neonatal neurology, and also in the long-term effects of concussion in older children. She returned to work in Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin, working as the RCSI clinical tutor. She completed her specialist registrar training in 2008 and worked for a time as a locum consultant in Crumlin. In 2010 she was awarded the Denis O Brien Fellowship, and moved to Cork with her husband and young family to undertake research into seizure activity in newborns with hypoxic brain injury.
In 2012, Dr Lynch began her job as consultant paediatrician in the Bon Secours Hospital, Cork. She strives to provide an efficient but compassionate service to the children of Cork. In 2016 she established Ireland’s first paediatric concussion clinic and travelled to UPMC in Pittsburgh to train in a world leading establishment. In the past four years she has helped many children recover from concussion and successfully return to sport and normal life.
During the pandemic, and since, Dr Lynch has provided online education and information on child health and safety through her social media presence.
Dr Kate McCann
Dr McCann is a certified lifestyle medicine physician, and is a Member of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, the British Society for Lifestyle Medicine, and has been active in the development of the newly formed Irish Society for Lifestyle Medicine. She received her undergraduate degree cum laude from the University of Notre Dame and MB BCh (Hons) from UCC. She is a Member of Royal College of Surgeons Ireland, a former Post-Doc in molecular biology at the Indiana University School of Medicine, and former Fellow at the Eck Institute for Global Health. She has certification from The Strategic Centre for Obesity Professional Education (SCOPE) and in trauma-informed practice.
In 2018, Dr. McCann established the community health promotion social media project now called “Emdoc Health” with the tag #FactsNotFears. In 2022, she re-launched Ireland’s only chapter of the international programme “Walk With A Doc.” She is a regular contributor on health promotion topics in the media.
Dr. McCann works in clinical research at St. Vincent’s University Hospital in collaboration with UCD and CEPHR. Dr. McCann also contributes as a lecturer in lifestyle medicine at RCSI. Her practice is based in Remedy Clinic Dublin; in addition, she has a weekly joint weight management clinic with Prof. Margaret Griffin, Consultant Endocrinologist, in Bons Secours Dublin.
Dr Mary Favier:
Co-Chair of Global Doctors for Choice
Co-Founder Doctors for Choice Ireland
Past President of the Irish College of General Practitioners 2019-2020
Member Covid-19 Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) March 2020- February 2022
Past Board Member Medical Protection Society 2008-2015
Past Member Irish Medical Council
Dr Clara Forrest
Dr Clara Forrest is currently in her first year of basic specialist training in general internal medicine.
After studying undergraduate medicine in University College Cork, she was awarded an academic track internship in Cork and spent dedicated research time examining patient safety and medical negligence claims involving breast cancer care.
This work continued during her completion of a MRes in Medical Sciences at University College Cork. The research focused on the current medicolegal landscape in Ireland as well as exploring patients’ and doctors’ experiences and opinions of medical error and litigation during breast cancer care.
The paper, “Current Irish medicolegal landscape: an unsustainable trajectory”, was published in BMJ Open Quality in August 2023.
Dr William Behan
Dr Behan is a GP practicing from Dublin 12 the last 23 years and GP Trainer for the last 10 years.
He became very interested in primary healthcare policy over the last 15 years and developed a research group with GPs Dr David Molony, Prof. Walter Cullen and other CompleteGP practice software users which performed audits of general practice activity that later informed the national policy.
Later collaboration with GP registrars at the time, Drs Patrick Smith, Anne Grace and Brendan Crosbie reviewed the quality of national healthcare statistics and performing more granular national audits of general practice activity. This collaboration and work done as an individual has been disseminated through the national media, working papers, peer-review journals as well as presentations at national and international conferences. At the time it provided an accepted rebuttal to Competition Authority and the original Sláintecare data under-reflecting GP workload.
Later its reliability was confirmed by HSE and Healthy Ireland data. It has also resulted in the HSE, the Department of Health, the Department of Expenditure and Reform, the CSO and the OECD changing various methodologies on how they collect Irish General Practice data as well as how they present it.