General Practice and Forensic & Legal Medicine

General Practice

This subject area is concerned with the administration of non-specialist care across a wide range of medical conditions.

Head of Subject: Prof Walter Cullen

 

Forensic and Legal Medicine

The Forensic & Legal Medicine group is a specialist team with expertise in medical law, medical ethics, professional regulation, fitness to practise issues, death investigations, and research ethics. The subject provides modules to undergraduate students in medicine, radiography, physiotherapy and occasional elective modules available to all students across the university. It also provides graduate courses for diverse groups of healthcare professionals and other practitioners as they engage as risk managers, medical and legal practitioners, witnesses, expert witnesses for the courts, and healthcare administrators.

Head of Subject: Dr Cliona McGovern


Teaching Faculty

Professor Gerard Bury

Professor Gerard Bury is Director of the Centre for Emergency Medical Science. A practising General Practitioner, he is also Professor of General Practice at UCD.

 

Professor Walter Cullen

I am a GP in Dublin City and Professor of Urban General Practice at UCD School of Medicine (2014-date) and previously, was Foundation Professor of General Practice at the University of Limerick Graduate Entry Medical School (2009-14). I currently lead a multi-disciplinary research team that as well as colleagues at UCD involves formal collaborations with HSE, primary / secondary care, service user representatives and international experts. It has realised in excess of 150 peer reviewed publications and over €3m in grant income.

My team’s research interests include how we can best use ‘big data’ to improve the treatment of mental disorders in primary care. I am co-PI on ‘Hepcare Europe’, an EU-funded project which aims to enhance hepatitis C treatment among at-risk groups. I currently supervise one Masters and four doctoral students on topics that include primary mental healthcare and data analytics, continuing professional development for GPs, using routinely collected data to evaluate mental health policy, and cardiovascular disease profile assessment in children of parents with early onset heart disease.

I teach on General Practice to students at UCD School of Medicine. In 2008, I led a team that established the Primary Care Teaching Network affiliated to UCD School of Medicine, which now includes over 200 general practices nationally. In 2010, our team also established the Primary Care Teaching Network affiliated to the UL Graduate Entry Medical School, which now includes over 100 practices.  

More Information 

Research Profile

e-Mail

 

Dr Cliona McGovern, PhD, MA, PDipUT&L, BA(Hons), Head of Subject

Dr McGovern is the Head of Subject in Forensic & Legal Medicine.  She holds a PhD in Coroners’ Law and Death Investigation from the Department of Law in the University of Sheffield. She also holds a Professional Diploma in University Teaching & Learning from UCD and an MA in the Medico-Ethical Aspects of the Diagnosis of Brain Death (UCD). She has authored reports on coroners for the Department of Justice, road safety for the Department of Transport, and on health screening for refugees and asylum seekers for the Department of Health. She has published both nationally and internationally on medical law and ethics, identifying undocumented foreign nationals, suicides, road traffic collisions, coroners’ data, and is co-author of the book Simpson’s Forensic Medicine (Irish version).

She is Chair of UCD's Human Research Ethics Committee. She is also the Director of Admissions for Medicine and has oversight of all EU entrants into the undergraduate and graduate entry to medicine programmes. She is an ethics & law advisor to the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. She was appointed to the UK Federation of Royal Colleges of Physicians (London, Glasgow & Edinburgh) where she is the ethics advisor for the MRCP(UK) examination Scenario Editorial Committee.

She is also a Board member on the Radiographer's Registration Board (RRB) in CORU and was appointed to the RRB by the Ministers of Education and Health, following her nomination through the Irish Universities Association. She is a member of the Ethics Panel in the Irish Medical Council. In 2020, she has been recently appointed to the HSE Drugs Group and a public interest member.

In UCD, Dr McGovern lectures on aspects of forensic & legal medicine, medical ethics and professionalism to medical, radiography, and physiotherapy students. She also lectures on similar topics to the graduate programmes in Healthcare Risk Management & Quality.

 

Mr Asim Sheikh

Asim A. Sheikh is a practising barrister specialising in clinical negligence and medical/healthcare law. He is also a CEDR Accredited Mediator. He acts for and advises a wide range of healthcare clients and regularly represents healthcare clients in the courts, internal inquiries, inquests and at the Medical Council and other healthcare bodies. He was called to the Bar in 1998. 

Mr Sheikh is a member of the National Advisory Council on Bioethics and was a member and Co-Vice-Chair of the Irish Council of Bioethics

He is also Assistant Professor in Legal Medicine, at the UCD School of Medicine, where he is Course Director and Modules Coordinator of the Professional Certificate in Medico-Legal Aspects of Healthcare and the

Graduate Diploma and MSc in Healthcare (Risk Management and Quality). He also lectures to a number of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in UCD. He is the Editor of the Medico-Legal Journal of Ireland.

Mr Sheikh lectures and has published on medical law and has a specialist interest in genetics and law. He also lectures at the Honorable Society of King’s Inns, the Law Society and the RCSI. He was a member of HIQA’s Advisory Group on a Human Rights-Based Approaches to Healthcare (2019) and the Advisory Group on Supporting people's Autonomy (2016) and has been a member of several national healthcare-related and other Committees.


General Practice – Meet the Team

Prof Gerard Bury  gerard.bury@ucd.ie
Prof Walter Cullen  walter.cullen@ucd.ie
Dr Nick Breen nick.breen@ucd.ie
Dr Crea Carberry crea.carberry@ucd.ie
Dr Nia Clendennen nia.clendennen@ucd.ie
‌Dr Thomas Cross thomas.cross@ucd.ie
Dr Tom Dennehy thomas.dennehy@ucd.ie
Dr Ciara McMeel ciara.mcmeel@ucd.ie
‌Dr Fiona Magee fiona.magee@ucd.ie
Dr Niamh Murphy niamh.murphy1@ucd.ie
Ms Helen Tobin gp.admin@ucd.ie
Dr Cliona McGovern  cliona.mcgovern@ucd.ie
Mr Asim Sheikh asim.sheikh@ucd.ie
Ms Danielle Marié legalmed@ucd.ie