International Health and Tropical Medicine

RCSI is an international institution, and we have a student body drawn from the world community in a way that is unique for a medical school. As a result, our research, practice and teaching of international health form an essential part of RCSI and College life.

The inception of the Department of International Health and Tropical Medicine at RCSI coincided with Ireland’s growing involvement in international aid.

The Government’s Agency for Personnel Service Overseas (APSO) was created in 1974; other major Irish international development NGOs (Concern, Goal, Trocaire) also began at that period, and the RCSI Department of Tropical Medicine became a critical advisory resource for them. 

The department also runs outpatient clinic services from Beaumont Hospital, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda and RCSI Mercer’s Medical Centre.

Contact us

Staff members from the Department of International Health and Tropical Medicine teach at both an Undergraduate and Postgraduate level in RCSI.

The module ‘Haemato-Lyphoid Tropical Medicine’, for Intermediate Cycle 2 GEM students based at Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown offers both the tropical medicine component and integrates cross-departmental and interdisciplinary teaching in a four-week block including lectures and tutorials, pathology and clinical competencies.

The department also teaches ‘Tropical Medicine’ for the Year 3 Undergraduate Medicine students, in Dublin and Bahrain RCSI.

At postgraduate level, the module ‘Surgeons in the Developing World’, introduces surgical trainees to the global healthcare context and specific issues relevant to the surgical profession.

As a student, you will gain insight into strategies that can contribute to improved surgical outcomes in the short-term while implementing broader healthcare management schemes to sustain development in the long-term.

Trainees gain awareness of surgical needs unique to developing countries and gain insight into strategies that can contribute to improved surgical outcomes in the short-term while implementing broader healthcare management schemes to sustain development in the long-term.

The department has an impressive and growing research portfolio led by Prof. Samuel McConkey.

The research activities of this department are about control and prevention of diseases in resource-poor areas; however, methodologically the activities span from the molecular and immunological, through clinical trials and cohort studies to health systems and anthropological investigations.

The department currently has a number of postgraduate scholars working on a diverse range of research projects.

Funding presently comes from the Irish Health Research Board and Higher Education Authority; from the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council and Medical Research Council; and from the European Vaccine Initiative in Heidelberg.

The latter is currently funding an R&D programme collaborating with Oxford University entitled ‘A circumsporozoite protein vaccine against malaria using the adenovirus Ch63 vector: preclinical and Phase I safety and immunogenicity studies’.

Professor/Head of Department

Consultant and Senior Lecturer

  • Eoghan de Barra

Clinical Lecturers

  • Kate Jackson
  • Josephine Hebert 

Honorary Clinical Lecturers

  • Deirdre Lundy
  • Cora McNally
  • Peter Coakley

Honorary Lecturers

  • Niall Roche