About the Guide Clinic

THE GUIDE STORY

Professor Fiona Mulcahy established the Department of Genitourinary Medicine at St. James's Hospital in 1987 to manage people infected with HIV and STI's. In January 2000, the department was expanded to incorporate the division of Infectious Diseases with the appointment of Professor Colm Bergin as Consultant in Infectious Diseases. The Department now provides a combined service for GU Medicine and Infectious Diseases (GUIDE) with two full-time ID consultant physicians (Professor Colm Bergin and Dr. Susan Clarke) and two full-time GU consultants (Professor Fiona Mulcahy and Dr. Fiona Lyons). The department consists of an extremely busy outpatient sexual health programme, an in-patient and consult service in HIV Medicine and General Infectious Diseases.

When the clinic was established twenty-five years ago the annual patient attendance was 9,033. By 2009 the numbers attending reached 25,460 and it had become the largest specialist centre in Ireland. The attendance figures for 2010 show the annual numbers of patients at 23,600, an average of 450 patients per week.