The Irish Gerontological Society (IGS) held its 50th anniversary conference in Cork in September last year.

Many members will remember the occasion of the 1999 Spring meeting of the BGS when nearly 650 BGS members and guests descended on Cork. The Cork conference machine remains well oiled and, as with the BGS meeting, Lucette Murray did a superb job, this time with Dr Denis O’Mahoney, now the Secretary of the IGS. Drs Cillian Twomey and Michael Highland, the latter three more years into his retirement, were much in evidence.

The scientific sessions started, following the Presidential address by Dr John Lavan. This was followed by multidisciplinary platform presentations from both north and south of the border and a symposium based around the PROSPER study which was partly coordinated locally. Sadly the results were embargoed until the American Heart Association meeting in November. Following a cardiovascular platform presentation session and poster viewing, Prof Sir John Grimley Evans gave the Willie Bermingham Lecture entitled “Geriatrics: dreams and realities” where he skilfully developed some of the themes he has previously addressed. This lecture has been a centrepiece of the IGS meetings for many years and honours the memory of an inner-city Dublin firebrigade ambulance driver. As a result of his experiences, he set up ALONE (A Little Offering Never Ends) dedicated to the care and support of frail older people living alone. It was refreshing to talk, over drinks, to the academic head of the University who was nothing but supportive of the contribution of geriatric medicine to the objectives of the University.

For those who were up to it, Saturday morning platform presentations occupied the first part of the Saturday programme. These were followed by the AGM and the award of Presidential medals to Ms Jenny Cronin for her presentation entitled, “The effect of a balance retraining programme on falls risk” and Dr Suzanne Timmons for her presentation entiled, “The prevalence of anticonvulsant use in elderly nursing home residents.”

The conference dinner was a black tie affair where guests were made to feel very welcome. The guest speaker, Dr Gary Lee, a pathologist from Mercy Hospital, Cork, could be described as having given a performance rather than a speech. Despite his wit, the BGS is perhaps not quite ready for him. I would be interested to hear what readers think about making the BGS dinners black tie events, particularly as many of our Scottish members do already, in their own distinctive way.

Prof Steve Jackson
King’s College Hospital