A team from RCSI won the second Jack Flanagan Intervarsity Medical School’s competition, which was recently held in Trinity College Dublin.

This competition is an intervarsity contest between the penultimate medical years of the three Dublin medical schools. It is sponsored by the Dublin Ageing Research Network (DARN), which is one of the largest physician and psychiatry based research collaboration networks in Europe. It comprises geriatricians and old age psychiatrists based in Dublin teaching hospitals and medical schools. This competition was chaired by Prof Rose Anne Kenny, Head of the Department of Gerontology, in Trinity College Dublin and was organized by clinical research fellows, Dr Orla Collins and Dr Lisa Cogan. 

Five teams participated this year, two teams each from Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and RCSI, and one team from University College Dublin (UCD). The students were challenged on their knowledge of the medical and psychiatric problems associated with ageing. The competition took the form of a clinical-pathology conference where competitors were given a case to review and had 45 minutes to formulate a care plan and diagnosis for the patient. Each team presented their findings in a 10-minute PowerPoint presentation and was questioned by a three member-judging panel from the three universities. The judging panel comprised of Elaine Greene, consultant in Old Age Psychiatry from TCD, Rachael Doyle, consultant in Geriatric Medicine from UCD and Ciaran Donegan, consultant in Geriatric Medicine from RCSI.

This year the competition was won by RCSI. The team members were Laura Davis, Kathleen Dunham, Aoife Morris and Amber Watts. The winners were awarded the ‘Jack Flanagan Medal in Gerontology’, which is an academic prize awarded by the Professors of Gerontology/Medicine and a cash bursary. This competition is named after Ireland’s first geriatrician. Dr Jack Flanagan was the first doctor in Ireland to specialize in caring for older people and pioneered modern day geriatric medicine.