Louisa is a Consultant Respiratory Paediatrician at Sydney Children’s Hospital with a special interest in asthma management and the epidemiology of respiratory health of children. She is also working on her PhD entitled The impact of early life factors versus lifestyle on the respiratory health of young adults through the University of Western Australia, for which she was awarded scholarships from both the University and the Asthma Foundation of Western Australia.
Having attained her medical degree at Trinity College Dublin, Louisa completed her paediatric training in Ireland and then carried out a Fellowship in Respiratory medicine at Princess Margaret Hospital for Children in Perth, Western Australia.

Professor Katharine Wallis is Mayne Professor and Head, Mayne Academy of General Practice and Head, General Practice Clinical Unit at the University of Queensland Medical School. She is a Fellow of both the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine and the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners currently practising part-time as a GP on the Gold Coast.

Katharine’s research focuses on patient safety in primary care, in particular supporting safer prescribing in general practice. Current projects include RELEASE: REdressing Long-tErm Antidepressant uSE in general practice funded by a MRFF 2020 Clinician Researchers: Applied Research in Health grant; RELEASE: Think-Aloud study with patients to optimise RELEASE resources, funded by the Mayne Bequest; a pilot study in general practice of the 3-Domains screening toolkit for older driver medical assessment in general practice, funded by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Foundation / Motor Accident Insurance Commission; and a validation study of the 3-Domains toolkit in older Australian drivers in the Princess Alexandra Hospital Occupational Therapy Driving Assessment & Rehabilitation Service also funded by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Foundation / Motor Accident Insurance Commission; and Mind the gaps: preparedness of new general practitioner fellows for independent practice’ project funded by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Education Research grant. She is Founding Director of the practice-based research network UQGP Research. Other research interests include medical ethics and medical professional regulation.

Katharine’s alma mater is the University of Otago in New Zealand. She joined UQ in late 2019 from the University of Auckland. Katharine’s previous roles include Associate Editor of the Rural and Remote Health Journal; Associate Editor Journal Primary Health Care; member Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal, Medical Council of New Zealand (2004-2019); member Medicines Adverse Reactions Committee, Medsafe, Ministry of Health (2010-2017); member Perinatal & Maternal Mortality Review Committee, Maternal Mortality Working Group, Health Quality & Safety Commission (2014-2017); and member Ethics Committee, New Zealand Medical Association (2013-2018). Current roles include Deputy Chair of the Australasian Association for Academic Primary Care, Academic Policy and Advocacy committee; and member Oxford International Primary Care Research Leadership Programme, University of Oxford.

Joanna’s research consists of an analysis of all aspects of psychiatric drug treatment, including subjective experiences, history of drug treatment, a critique of evidence for drug treatments, theoretical perspectives on psychiatric drug treatment, and political aspects of drug treatment, including work on the influence of the pharmaceutical industry.

She is also interested in the nature and function of diagnosis in modern psychiatric practice, and in the history, politics and philosophy of psychiatry more generally.

I am a training psychiatrist and Clinical Research Fellow in Psychiatry North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT) and an Honorary Clinical Research Fellow at UCL. I run a Psychotropic drug Deprescribing Clinic in North East London NHS Foundation Trust. I completed a PhD in the neurobiology of depression and the action of antidepressants at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London.

I am an Associate Editor of the journal Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology. I co-authored the recent Royal College of Psychiatry guidance on ‘Stopping Antidepressants’, and my work has informed the recent NICE guidelines on safe tapering of psychiatric medications. I have written several papers about safe approaches to tapering psychiatric medications including publications in The Lancet Psychiatry, JAMA Psychiatry and Schizophrenia Bulletin.

I have an interest in rational psychopharmacology, the way in which psychiatric drugs are often mis-represented to the public and safely deprescribing these drugs. I have experienced the difficulty of coming off psychiatric medications first hand which has informed much of my work.

Dr Chu is a General Practitioner at Turbot Street Medical Centre. Sarah is committed to ongoing professional education, ensuring that her patients receive the highest quality of care. She is referred to as the ‘Travel Guru’ by other doctors due to the knowledge she has in the field of travel medicine. She is actively involved in teaching the next generation of doctors and is also one of the assessors for the RACGP.

Fiona is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia. Fiona is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Department of Bioethics, Dalhousie University, Canada. Fiona’s research encompasses issues related to health governance and has four broad themes:

* the governance of health systems
* the governance of health technologies
* the governance of health professionals
* the governance of health organisations

Current board member of the Australian Clinical Psychology Association (ACPA)

Senior Lecturer at Deakin University (Melbourne). Unit coordinator of the undergraduate Psychopathology unit which educates students on mental illness diagnosis, formulation, and treatment

Practising clinical psychologist, focusing on assessment and treatment mental of illnesses in youth and adults. Currently working in private practice at Be Psychology and Mental Health – https://www.be-psychology.com.au/

Active researcher, with a focus on emotional disorders (and particularly depression). In this research I focus on the process of recalling past experiences and thinking about the future, and how this interacts with things like anticipating pleasure, pursing goals that are important to us, our self-concept, and solving the problems in our lives. I study the interaction between mental illnesses and these abilities, and develop and test interventions to improve mental health.

Rebecca is a senior healthcare executive with a Doctor of Public Health from UNSW with more than 20 years of experience in population health management, health communications and health service development and evaluation.

Meghan K. McCoy, Ed.D. is the Manager of Programs at the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center, at Bridgewater State University. McCoy is also an Adjunct Faculty of Psychology and Childhood Studies at BSU. She has a BA in Psychology, a M.Ed. in School Counseling, and an EdD in Curriculum, Teaching, Learning, and Leadership. Her work focuses on social and emotional learning for older teens and young adults, bullying, cyberbullying and digital use among children and teens, and addressing bias in the K-16 education system. McCoy works with and trains K-12, undergraduate, and graduate students, consults in K-12 education, and focuses her expertise on providing practical strategies and concrete solutions to everyday social challenges.

Dr. Elizabeth Englander is the founder and Executive Director of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center at Bridgewater State University, a Center which delivers programs, resources, and research for the state of Massachusetts and nationwide. As a researcher and a professor of Psychology for 25 years, she is a nationally recognized expert in the area of bullying and cyberbullying, childhood causes of aggression and abuse, and children’s use of technology. She was named Most Valuable Educator by the Boston Red Sox and in 2018, Massachusetts Governor Charles Baker appointed her to his Juvenile Justice Advisory Council. She is also on the Scientific Advisory Board for the Institute of Child Development and Digital Media.

During the 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic, Dr. Englander’s work has focused on helping children and schools promote strong mental health and social relationships in the face of sustained social isolation and rising depression and anxiety in children. During 2020, she authored and published two books, one for schools (When The Kids Come Back) and another for children aged 8-11 years old (The Insanely Awesome Pandemic Playbook: A Humorous Mental Health Guide For Kids), which also features a supplemental guide for teachers and parents.

Prior to 2020, Dr. Englander served as the Special Editor for the Cyberbullying issues of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry-CONNECT and the Journal of Social Sciences, and has authored more than a hundred articles in academic journals and books. She is the author of eight books, including books for adults: Understanding Violence (a standard academic text in the field of child development and violent criminal behavior), Bullying and Cyberbullying: A Guide for Educators, published by Harvard Education Press, and 25 Myths About Bullying and Cyberbullying (Wiley press), and books for children: The Insanely Awesome Pandemic Playbook: A Humorous Mental Health Guide For Kids, and The Insanely Awesome POST Pandemic Playbook: A Humorous Mental Health Guide For Kids. She has also written a variety of research-based curricula and educational handouts for communities and professionals. Reflecting her interest in educating laypeople, Dr. Englander has answered questions in a column for the New York Times (online edition), and she wrote the column Bullying Bulletin Board, which was syndicated by Gatehouse Media in hundreds of newspapers nationwide.

While I was in the later years of medical school, I decided that I really wanted a discipline within medicine that allowed me to get to know my patients really well and develop relationships with them. I thought that either general practice or psychiatry would do this. However, when I considered the breadth of general practice, I found that more exciting I really enjoy the mix of mental and physical health challenges in general practice. Later I found that as a GP in the same practice for 30 years now, I have the opportunity to develop relationships with patients and families in depth to get to know people over many years and understand them in that context as well and I find this really satisfying.
Of course the clinical work is complemented by my work as a GP academic, and I really enjoy the teaching and research I am involved in.
There are many best moments as a general practitioner but one of them occurred quite recently and relates to the academic work. I have been interviewing carers of people with dementia to understand their difficulties. Recently I have been trying hard to understand some particularly difficult material in these interviews, as the interviewed carers struggle to understand the diagnosis of dementia. This week I attended a workshop in which GPs from Australia and France and a geriatrician from the Netherlands helped me to understand how to approach this material and of course from this, a new way to approach my patients who are in this situation. This is an example of where the world of academia and the world of clinical practice can meet very fruitfully.
I really enjoy the regional nature of my workplace. The clinical practice is in a small outer metropolitan community that has a strong sense of identity. Newcastle University, being part of a regional centre, also has a strong sense of community. Newcastle is a great place to work and the GPs in Newcastle are really fantastic in the way they get behind the university for teaching and research.
I think other GPs could all benefit from an ongoing commitment to teaching and learning. There is nothing like teaching a medicals tudent to highlight what you have forgotten! It is often helpful to have the student then look that up! More broadly, I think conferences like the College conference always offer both ideas and practical strategies than can enrich and improve our practice, and keep our interest alive. I would like to encourage GPs to attend.
As for something no one knows about me – I do like a warm bath, a glass of red wine and a good murder mystery. Bliss!

Leanne is a psychologist (MAPS), with experience across both clinical and organisation psychology.
Leanne has over 30 years of experience in a variety of National and State based Executive and Senior leadership roles in health and aged care. Joining Dementia Australia in 1998, Leanne has dedicated her career to improving the lives of people living with dementia, their families and carers through advocacy, service design and expansion and innovation. With three decades of leadership experience in Dementia Care, she is a respected advocate and leader for better quality outcomes for people impacted by dementia.