A new organization will help LGBT doctors in Ireland.

While similar organizations exist in the UK, Europe and United States, Ireland just set up Gay Doctors Ireland this past December. The group will hold its first meeting next month.

“I think in general LGBT professionals face similar issues across the board which they encounter in college and the workplace,” said founder Dr. Conor Malone. “For LGBT doctors, medicine has traditionally been a very conservative working environment, particularly in the hospitals. Medicine is so racially diverse, people are so integrated in other ways . . . it seems the last bastion of the old medical hierarchy is for LGBT doctors to be accepted. It is happening, very slowly but surely.”

The group presently has 40 members from its website, and there are others involved who have not yet joined.

To read more on this story, visit the Irish Times.