| Starting
March 1996 and for fourteen issues, Paul edited Irish
Doctor, a monthly journal for doctors. In a break with
tradition and to make the journal more relevant, Paul
wrote a lead article for each edition, taking readers
into areas of medicine rarely visited. He explored the
health services in Mountjoy jail, Ireland’s most
dangerous and controversial penal establishment. He
was the only journalist allowed visit, report and photograph
the state’s oldest working morgue. Sadly the then
state pathologist, Professor Jack Harbison, has since
retired and the mortuary is being demolished to make
way for a new and state-of-the-art facility under the
direction of Ireland’s new state pathologist,
Prof Marie Cassidy.
 In
addition Paul wrote on rehabilitation programs for sex
offenders in state prisons, addiction strategies for
heroin users and the care of patients in the Central
Mental Hospital, Ireland’s detention centre for
the criminally insane. He interviewed Dr James Donovan,
founder and director of the Forensic Science Laboratory
based at police HQ in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. Dr
Donovan was at the centre of many high profile trials
and his forensic evidence helped clinch convictions
in many
terrorist investigations, including the murderers of
Lord Mountbatten in Sligo in the late 70’s. Donovan’s
fearlessness and refusal to capitulate to intimidation
made him an enemy of crime bosses and subversives. He
had bullets sent to him through the post, threatening
mail and phone calls and was blown up on his way to
work by a device attached to his car. Donovan sustained
horrific leg injuries and at one stage it was thought
he might need both lower limbs amputated. Fortunately
the skill of orthopaedic surgeons saved him from this
drastic surgery and within eighteen months he was back
at his desk.
 Separately,
Paul Carson wrote on the many medical advances and achievements
in the state’s major hospitals. He described facilities
for pre-term babies at Dublin’s Rotunda Hospital,
neurosurgery at Beaumont Hospital, delicate eye surgery
at the Royal Victoria Eye & Ear Hospital etc. The
pieces were so well received that Irish Doctor achieved
its highest readership ever, making the other monthlies
sit up and take notice.
Paul resigned as editor in mid-1997 to concentrate on
his medical thrillers.
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