Giovanni Sala is a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Liverpool (UK), where he was awarded a PhD in 2017. His work focuses on building statistical models of human cognition in experimental and educational settings. His interests include the study of cognitive and biological correlates of successful ageing, the relationship between intelligence and expert performance, and the evaluation of cognitive/brain training programmes.

Melissa Kang Clinical Associate Professor in the Specialty of General Practice at the University of Sydney. She is also Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Technology Sydney. She is a primary health care academic and has worked clinically in youth health since 1993 in community and hospital settings. Her research areas include adolescent sexuality and sexual health, and access to primary health care for young people. She teaches postgraduate students and has trained a wide range of health and education professionals in adolescent health. She has been involved in developing resources in adolescent and / or sexual health for GPs for the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, NSW Health (Youth Health and Wellbeing Team) and the Sexually Transmitted Infections Programs Unit for NSW Health. Melissa wrote the Dolly Doctor medical column for Dolly magazine for 23 years before it closed in December 2016.

Senior Research Fellow with 17 years experience in general practice research. PhD (Medicine) investigated the effect of computerisation on the quality of care in Australian general practice. Background in Health Information Management (BAppSc (HIM) Hons 1). Deputy Director of the Family Medicine Research Centre, investigator of the national BEACH program from 1999 to 2016. Editor of HIMJ, the international peer-reviewed journal of the Health Information Management Association of Australia.

Christopher Harrison joined the University of Sydney’s Family Medicine Research Centre (FMRC) in March 2002. He has been a primary care researcher for two decades now. He completed his PhD in 2017 which investigated the best way to define and measure multimorbidity. Dr Harrison’s study interests are macro health and policy issues, including workforce, effect of vaccinations, the prevalence and patterns of multimorbidity and GP access and billing.

Dr Jo-Ann See has worked at Central Sydney Dermatology since 1993 and has been a principal here for over 25 years. After obtaining her medical degree with honours from the University of New South Wales in 1985, she completed her residency at the Prince of Wales Hospital and then her Dermatology training at both Prince of Wales and St Vincent’s Hospitals in Sydney. Her post Fellowship training in Psoriasis was completed at Baylor Medical School, Dallas Texas. As a member of the American Academy of Dermatology and the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology she regularly attends national and international annual scientific meetings to stay up to date.

Dr See has served on the State and Federal boards of the Australasian College of Dermatologists as well as having been a guest examiner for the Fellowship examinations. She has been involved in clinical trials, product launches and has introduced innovative treatments to Australia. Her key interests are skin care, sun damage, skin cancer and acne. She is a pioneer in the field treatment of actinic keratosis (pre-cancers) with daylight photodynamic therapy. Dr See is at the forefront of acne treatment in Australia. She is invited as the sole Australian representative to the International Global Alliance to improve Outcomes in Acne. She, together with liked-minded colleagues, spearheaded the formation of a non-profit health initiative, All About Acne, and has been its long standing chair/co-chair since its foundation.

Dr See attends and is an invited speaker both nationally and internationally. She has made regular appearances in press, radio and television discussing, clarifying and de-mystifying dermatology issues. She has also consulted with the College of Dermatology as well as industry in providing patient information for the general public and teaching material for general practice.

Prof David Price is founder and head of Optimum Patient Care (UK and Australia), a science-based, social enterprise which focuses on disease registries and supporting care in primary and secondary care led by internationally recognised experts in all areas of respiratory medicine. He is also the founder of The Observational and Pragmatic Research Institute (Singapore), an independent, research-driven organisation established to cultivate initiatives, provide evidence and drive quality standards within the growing field of real-life, pragmatic and observational research. This dynamic organisation delivers pragmatic clinical trials and real-life database research across multiple geographies, including territories in the United States, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, such as Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, The Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, Japan and China.

Associate Professor Jurgen Passage is the Head of Department for the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at St John of God Subiaco Hospital and also held this position at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital from 2013 to 2015. He completed his undergraduate medical degree in Leipzig, Germany in 1998. Prof Passage migrated to Australia in the same year and completed the Australian Medical Council Certificate in 2000. He undertook post-graduate training in General and Cardiothoracic Surgery in Brisbane and Sydney and completed his FRACS (Fellowship of the Royal Australian College of Surgeons) in 2008. Dr Passage spent 14 months at the University of Leipzig Heart Centre as a Mitral Valve Fellow in 2008 and 2009. He gained extensive training and experience in minimally invasive mitral valve surgery. In October 2009, he started Western Australia’s first minimally invasive mitral valve surgery program. In 2010 he founded the AMIMS Workshop (Australian Minimally Invasive Mitral Valve Surgery), which trains surgeons in this technique. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Notre Dame Australia (Fremantle) and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Western Australia. Dr Passage has sub-specialty interests in: * Adult Cardiac Surgery * Minimally invasive mitral valve repair and replacement surgery * Minimally invasive tricuspid valve surgery * Surgery for aortic valve disease * Minimally invasive atrial septal defect closure * Coronary artery bypass surgery * Surgical treatment of Atrial fibrillation * Surgical treatment of aortic diseases such as aneurysms * Surgery for cardiac tumours * Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) * Transcatheter mitral valve interventions (MitraClip and others).

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.