On any given evening when the doors of the Cook County Hospital Trauma Unit crash open, the duty surgeon can face anything from a pregnant woman shot in crossfire between rival street gangs to a thug with multiple stab-wounds.

An Irish medic and gunshot wounds expert, who headed up the trauma unit which inspired the hit US TV medical drama ER, is to be honoured by his university.

There has been a dramatic increase in gun crime in Dublin over the past four decades, with greater use of handguns resulting in more deaths.