User:RisteardMulcahy

Risteárd Mulcahy is a retired cardiologist who has a long standing interest in the prevention and treatment of coronary heart disease. He was a leading figure in researching the causes of coronary disease at a national and international level. The following is a short CV.

Risteárd Mulcahy

Date of Birth: 13/7/1922 Third of Richard and Mary Josephine (Min), neé Ryan, Mulcahy’s six children.

Education: Primary: Scoil Mhuire and Scoil Colmcille, Marlborough Street.1926-1933. Secondary: Coláiste Mhuire, Parnell Square, Dublin.1. 1933-1939 Tertiary: University College, Dublin and St. Vincent’s Hospital. 1939-1945

Qualified: MB, Bch, BAO UCD, 1945; MRCP (Lond) 1948; MD 1948; FRCP 1969;FRCPI 1971; FFCMI 1973. Appointed Professor of Preventive Cardiology, UCD and St. Vincent’s Hospital, 1974.

Appointments: Physician and Cardiologist, St. Vincent’s Hospital and Coombe Lying-in Hospital, 1950-1988.

Distinctions: Founder President, Irish heart Foundation, 1966-1972. President, Irish Medical Association, 1971. Chairman, British Cardiac Society, 1972. Chairman, Irish Health Promoting Hospitals, 1996-1999 Patron, Irish Doctors’ Environmental Association.

Research: Lifetime interest in heart disease research, particularly the natural history, causation and the prevention of coronary heart disease. Member of European Society of Cardiology and the International Society and Federation of Cardiology working groups on Cardiac Rehabilitation and on Epidemiology. Advisor on cardiac rehabilitation and prevention to WHO, the European Union, the Royal College of Physicians, the British Cardiac Society, etc.

Publications: About 150 papers published in peer reviewed national and international medical journals; numerous articles in the popular literature on heart disease prevention and management; numerous presentations at national and international meetings; membership of several national and international commissions on various aspects of heart disease management, rehabilitation and prevention. Four books published on heart disease management and prevention for the profession and the public. Major advocate of public education on the benefits of exercise, healthy eating and smoking control.

Interests: The Irish Health Service, trees, the environment, recent Irish history and the Irish language

Rowing, squash, running and hill climbing in past. Now walking, cycling and golf. Member of various medical, sporting, environmental, silvicultural and historical organisations.

Retirement: 1988 from hospital practice. Minimal out-patient practice until 1998, and continuing medico-legal consultancy in Ireland and UK. Limited administrative duties continue as supervisor of the exercise stress laboratory, Charlemont Clinic, Dublin.

Details of books, including availability and cost, can be provided by accessing email address: risteard@eircom.net.

Prof Risteárd Mulcahy has published the following books:

Heart Attack and Lifestyle. Irish Heart Foundation, 1976. pp 95.

An account of the importance of smoking, high cholesterol and blood pressure, and lack of aerobic exercise as risk factors causing coronary heart disease, and an early thesis on the importance of appropriate lifestyle changes in treatment and prevention.

Beat Heart Disease. Martin Dunitz, London, 1979. pp 128. Three editions; several reprints. Subsequently published by McDonald & Co. May not be available.

This book deals with the importance of appropriate lifestyle in the treatment and prevention of coronary disease and stroke.

The Longterm Care of the Coronary Patient. Churchill Livingstone, London, 1990. pp 124.

A textbook intended for health professionals primarily dealing with the importance of appropriate lifestyle changes, and with a particular emphasis on exercise and smoking cessation, in the secondary prevention of coronary, stroke and related complications.

For Love of Trees – Trees, Hedgerows, Ivy and the Environment. 1996, Environmental Publications, Dublin; pp 77.

An account of the common ivy (Hedera helix) which has a wide distribution in Ireland. The author’s researches would support the view that the heavy infestation of trees and hedges, widespread in Ireland, particularly in the East and South, can cause serious growth retardation and is aesthetically damaging, particularly to specimen and woodland trees, and to hedgerows.

Richard Mulcahy – a Family Memoir. The Aurelian Press, Dublin, 1999. pp 422. .

General Richard Mulcahy was the head of the army during the Irish War of Independence and the Civil War, and was Minister for Defence from 1922-1924. He had a long subsequent political career. This is an account of his opinions of his many contemporaries and colleagues who were involved in the independence movement. It also describes his family background and the family background of his wife’s family, the Ryans of Wexford. The Ryans played a crucial part in the independence movement and were bitterly divided at the time of the Civil War.

Improving With Age – what exercise can do for you. Liberties Press, Dublin, 2002. pp 159.

The author describes his lifetime exercise experience and the immense advantages, physical, mental and social, which he derived from a strenuous life of aerobic exercise. He emphasises the importance an active aerobic life plays in the prevention of many common diseases and the benefits exercise brings in slowing the ageing process and in reducing the period of decrepitude and loss of independence preceding final dissolution. Other important ageing symptoms and limitations are discussed which can be adequately dealt with by sensible adaptation. He underlines the importance of accepting certain limitations as a natural part of ageing and not reasons for dependency on medical intervention.

Is the Health Service for Healing? – A Doctor’s Defence of Medicine’s Samaritan Role.

The author reviews current problems in the Irish Health Service and describes the fundamental factors which lie at the basis of its woes. He is highly critical of the Government’s proposal to encourage with-profit private hospitals and foresees a serious threat to the vocational tradition of the health professionals when hospitals become the source of profit for individual investors and financial institutions. He refers to corrupt practices which have been recorded in with-profit hospitals abroad. He records that no Irish government has attempted to set up a commission to decide what type of service would best suit Ireland. He deplores the current trend towards an iniquitous and costly American system and supports a one tier, compulsory health insurance system as is compatible with Ireland’s European partners.