Doherty Colin | St James's Hospital

Speciality: Neurology

Sub specialities: Epilepsy

Professor Doherty is a consultant neurologist and director of the epilepsy service at St James's Hospital. He served as the national clinical lead for the Epilepsy Care Programme in Ireland for nine years, with a charge to develop epilepsy services nationally to improve quality of care and access for patients. He has recently moved from that role to take up a specific remit around women’s health in epilepsy with the evolution of the valproate in pregnancy story. He is also the Ellen Mayston Bates Professor of Epileptology at Trinity College Dublin.

Professor Doherty completed his undergraduate degree at University College Dublin in 1991. He trained in medicine and neurology at St Vincent’s and Beaumont Hospitals and later at the Partners Neurology Residency Programme at Harvard Medical School, Boston (Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital), where he was Chief Resident (1998-2001). He then completed fellowships in epilepsy and cognition at Massachusetts General Hospital (2001-2003).
MD FRCPI
In the last few years, Professor Doherty has become interested in the challenges of population health, health services research and care delivery in epilepsy and latterly e-health; the opportunities and challenges of technology in healthcare delivery and organisation. In particular, he has been working with Sláintecare and the primary care organisation Safetynet, to help develop services for long-term homeless individuals who have epilepsy.
- Member of the Irish government’s expert group on resource allocation in the health sector (2011)
- Member of the National Clinical Effectiveness Committee in Ireland since its inception in 2011 (2011-2015)
- Represented the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland on The Irish Patient Safety Steering Group (2012-2016)
- Board member of the Health Research Board (2010-2015)
- Founder member and medical director of Epilepsy Research Ireland (ERI)
- Irish representative to the International League Against Epilepsy Committee (ILAE) for the global campaign against epilepsy and a collaborator on a large EU-funded study on the epidemiology of epilepsy in Europe (ESBASE)
- Principal Investigator (PI) at the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) research centre FutureNeuro
Professor Doherty has published on national issues regarding epilepsy care including; evidence based pathways, national mortality estimates, hospital access restrictions and national prescribing rates. He has 100 peer reviewed publications, over 2,700 citations and a H-index of 28. He has authored chapters in three textbooks and co-edited one. Professor Doherty has published widely in the areas of brain imaging in epilepsy, the genetics of epilepsy, functional imaging of language, dementia, clinical neurology and epileptology and traumatic brain injury.