MEDICAL MATTERS: It is five years since I became medical correspondent of The Irish Times. It is a year since we started the weekly HealthSupplement. Both anniversaries make this an appropriate time to reflect on the question: what drew me into journalism?
Like many broad questions, there is no simple answer. Reflecting as I write, it seems to have happened more as a process, with a number of personal, professional and even genetic milestones along a journey that could be labelled "from healer to hack".
That genetics played a part, I cannot deny. My father is a playwright, children's author and sometime songwriter. But he is not a journalist. Nor did I have any conscious desire to follow in his footsteps as a callow 18 year old. Medicine, and in particular a career as a family doctor, beckoned. Yet, in my late 30s, it was as if a "writing gene" was suddenly switched on. I felt a strong compulsion to write.
Michael O'Donnell, a distinguished journalist-physician in Britain, advises would-be medical writers: "If your enthusiasm - or do I mean obsession? - remains undiminished, then sit down and write... and keep on writing. Don't talk about it. Don't theorise about it... Just do it. The only acceptable definition of a writer is someone who writes."
I followed this advice and began writing a weekly column for the then fledgling Medicine Weekly, a doctors' newspaper. As a continuing medical education tutor, I wrote educational articles for other doctors. I also scripted and produced educational videos for general practitioners.
Doctors, and general practitioners in particular, hear patients' stories every day. You become aware of how differently these stories emerge, or how illness strikes and how people react. Working in a deprived urban environment, I also realised the importance of avoiding medical jargon. If I wanted to truly connect with patients and relatives, then I needed to use appropriate language. By now I was a full-time family doctor and occupational physician with a strong interest in medical writing. So what transformed me into a journalist?
The answer lies somewhere between my medical experiences and serendipity. All doctors become aware of inequality as they practice medicine. For those of us working in deprived environments, inequality permeates almost every consultation: unequal educational opportunities; unequal access to health services. Experiences at the clinical coalface, accumulated over time, sensitise you to issues of equity and justice.
I was reminded of health service inequity on a daily basis as public patients faced either a complete lack of service or an unacceptable length of time spent on waiting lists.
As health service bureaucracy stymied my limited efforts on behalf of patients, my frustrations found an outlet in medical writing. Opportunity then intervened, with an offer to write a health column for a Sunday broadsheet. Occasional news stories, full feature pieces and book review contributions followed. I took time out of the practice each week to devote to my new commitments.
But it wasn't until I joined The Irish Times that the opportunity to write about health issues in a political dimension arose. Now I began to feel like a real journalist. I used my unique insight into our dysfunctional health service to research and write stories, encouraged and facilitated by my editors. I try to demystify medicine in my writing and to provide you, the reader, with a nonsensationalist and balanced view of health.
Now I understand the words of William Somerset Maugham when he said: "To write simply is as difficult as to be good."
• Dr Muiris Houston is pleased to hear from readers at mhouston@irish-times.ie but regrets he cannot answer individual queries.