Selby Stewart is the 2019 news cadet, based in Sydney. He was a Walkley finalist for the 2018 Australian Student Journalist of the Year. He previously worked as a reporter at the Herald Sun. Selby tweets from @Selby_Cameron and can be reached at stewart.selby@abc.net.au

Pharmacy student, MPharm (Hons) Pharmacy 2016

Dispelling health myths, fads, exaggerations and misconceptions.
I wrote a book dispelling health myths called HYPE: A Doctor’s Guide to Medical Myths, Exaggerated Claims and Bad Advice– How to Tell What’s Real and What’s Not, to stop our heads from spinning from overwhelming rapid-fire health information.I’m the Director of Pediatric Otolaryngology and Professor of Head and Neck Surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. I’ve been in academic medicine for over two decades, setting the record straight about the latest health fads and misconceptions. As someone who’s had their feet firmly planted in both clinical and academic work, I help patients and families make decisions every day about their health. Living in times filled with suspicion, I find myself dispelling a lot of myths in response to swarms of information triggering fear or unnecessarily pushing us to change our habits overnight.

Shomik Sengupta is a consultant urologist at Eastern Health, Melbourne and Professor of Surgery at the Eastern Health Clinical School of Monash University. Shomik has a practice with a uro-oncology subspecialty interest including open, laparoscopic and robotic cancer surgery. He completed his urological training through the Victorian Section of the Urological Society of Australia & New Zealand (USANZ) and subsequently completed a Uro-Oncology fellowship at the prestigious Mayo Clinic, USA. He has also completed a Masters in Surgery (2002) and a Doctorate in Medicine (2014) through the University of Melbourne. Shomik is a strong contributor to research and teaching. He was the Chair of the Victorian training subcommittee of USANZ from 2014 to 2016, and currently is the leader of the GU Oncology advisory group. Shomik is involved in clinical trial research through the Australian and New Zealand Urogenital & Prostate (ANZUP) cancer trials group, where he is a member of the Board and the Scientific Advisory Committee. Shomik has more than 80 original publications to date, and has been an invited speaker at a number of scientific meetings. Shomik was convenor of the ANZUP Annual Scientific Meeting in 2013 and the scientific program director for the USANZ Annual Scientific Meeting in 2017.

Rebecca Seligman is a medical and psychological anthropologist who focuses on transcultural psychiatry, or the study of mental health in cross-cultural perspective. Her research interests involve critical examination of the social and political-economic forces that affect the experience and distribution of mental and physical illness, with an emphasis on the physical processes and mechanisms through which such forces become embodied. Seligman is interested in the relationships of stress, social disadvantage, and cultural models of selfhood to outcomes such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), dissociation, somatization, diabetes, and depression. She is also exploring current neurobiological research concerning these phenomena. Her past research has explored the connection between mental health and religious participation in northeastern Brazil. Her book on this research was recently published.

I am a lecturer in the Faculty of Health and Social Care at The Open University. I have studied Psychology (BSc, University of Manchester), Occupational Psychology (MSc, University of Nottingham) and Applied Psychology (PhD, University of Nottingham). My PhD explored doctors’ and medical students’ attitudes toward older patients and their care in healthcare settings. I have an interest in attitudes research, both the qualitative exploration and quantitative measurement of our attitudes towards social groups or groups of people. In my previous role at Imperial College London, I investigated patient safety in primary care in North-West London.I am registered with the British Psychological Society as a Chartered Psychologist (CPsychol) and am a registered test-user for BPS Occupational Ability and Occupational Personality psychometric tests (NEO-Revised Personality Inventory).

David Nield (Guest Writer) is a freelance journalist who has been writing about science and technology for more than 10 years. His work can be seen on The Guardian, Gizmodo, TechRadar, Digital Trends and numerous other places. @davidnield

E.J. Mundell is a reporter for HealthDay.

I’m the editor of BioPharma Dive, an online trade publication serving execs and professionals in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. Before making the leap into business journalism, I worked as a healthcare reporter for ThinkProgress. And before that, I was enjoying the quaint New Hampshire life at Dartmouth College, from where I graduated in 2012 with a double-major in Government and Religious Studies, focusing on American public policy and healthcare policy. I’ve been published in the Huffington Post, U.S. News and World Report, and Seeking Alpha, among others. In my spare time, I cook a mean Indian dish or two.