Broadcaster and journalist Tom McGurk was guest speaker at the 81st Biological Society Inaugural Meeting which took place in the Albert Lecture Theatre in RCSI on Friday evening, 31 January.

The Biological Society is the oldest student society in RCSI and the event was organised by the Biological Society Committee with assistance from the Student Services team.

After opening the meeting, outgoing Biological Society President Professor Clive Lee handed over the chain of office to Professor Frank Murray, Registrar of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland, Consultant Gastroenterologist in Beaumont Hospital and Associate Professor of Medicine at RCSI, officially marking the commencement of his term as President of the Society. In his Presidential Address, entitled 'Dying for a drink', Professor Murray spoke of the dangers of alcohol abuse in Ireland and the challenges it poses to our healthcare system.

The guest speaker Tom McGurk, RTÉ sports presenter, columnist for the Sunday Business Post and playwright continued on the theme of alcohol abuse in his talk entitled 'A call to arms', McGurk delivered an inspiring keynote address to the Society remarking that journalists and health professionals frequently find themselves in the front line of wars and natural disasters; one group trying to define the causes and the other trying to treat the effects. He highlighted his concerns about the increasingly close relationship between the media and industry and argued that this had contributed to the twin health threats of alcohol and obesity.

A number of Society medal awards were announced at the meeting including the RCSI Council Medal winners Shane Crilly, (Senior Case Competitions) and Mesfer Alyami (Junior Case Competition); Neil Maik, winner of the Denis Gill Medal for Paediatrics; Ciara Nolan, recipient of the Alan Browne Medal for Obstetrics and Gynaecology; Alan Black, Psychiatry Case Competition winner and Anshuman Sood, recipient of the Dr Arthur Stephen Ffrench-O'Carroll Medal. The Harold Browne Anatomy Medal, was awarded to May-Anh Nguyen, Michael Ryan and David Hakim.

A new prize presented for the first time this year was the Mary Leader Medal in Pathology, which was awarded to Chelsea Garcia, Lewena Maher and Fiachra Sheil.

Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, RCSI, Professor Hannah McGee, proposed and the Honorary Secretary of the Society, Mr Yousef Abdul-Wahab, seconded the motion that the Biological Society is worthy of the support of the Students of the College and a closing address was delivered by Professor Cathal Kelly, CEO/Register of RCSI.