SUMMARY The Irish Fracture Risk Assessment (FRAX) tool is the first fracture prediction model that has been calibrated using national hip fracture incidence data and Irish mortality rates. The Irish FRAX tool can be used to identify intervention thresholds for Ireland based on the fracture probability equivalent to that of a woman with a prior fracture. OBJECTIVES The objective of the study i...

Racism in the National Health Service: lessons from the past Dr McNaught is right to point out examples of racism in the NHS (December 2004 JRSM1). But what to do about it? Maybe we can learn some lessons from the past. Today there is an over-representation of black people in the mental health system but in the 1960s Irish people were over-represented.2 Psychiatrists thought that the prevalence...

OBJECTIVE To assess breast-feeding initiation and prevalence from birth to 6 months in a sample of mothers in Dublin, and to determine the factors associated with breast-feeding initiation and 'any' breast-feeding at 6 weeks in a sample of Irish-national mothers. DESIGN This prospective cross-sectional study involved the recruitment of women during the antenatal period, with subsequent follow...

Despite its apparent popularity in fifteenth-century Ireland—as attested by its presence in eight manuscripts—Stair Fortibrais, the Irish adaptation of the twelfth-century chanson de geste Fierabras has received very little scholarly attention. This fact proves especially unfortunate since the text possesses particular relevance for two important trends in recent scholarship, one concerning Cel...

OBJECTIVE To identify maternal and pregnancy-related physiological and pathological variables associated with fetal growth and birthweight in Ireland and to develop customized birthweight centile charts for the Irish population that will aid in appropriate identification and selection of growth-restricted fetuses requiring increased antenatal surveillance. STUDY DESIGN Prospectively collected...

INTRODUCTION Other contributors to this collection have evoked the disparate worlds inhabited by Sir William Wilde. AIMS To provide an overall assessment of his career. MATERIALS AND METHODS Looking at the historical conditions that made possible such a career spanning such disparate worlds. Deploying methodologies developed by historians of medicine and sociologists of science, the article...