The Medico-Legal Society of Victoria

Patrick Mullins is a Canberra-based author and academic. His first book, Tiberius with a Telephone, a biography of former Australian prime minister William McMahon (1971–72), was published by Scribe in October 2018. It won the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction, at the 2020 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, and the National Biography Award for 2020. His second book, The Trials of Portnoy, is an account of the downfall of literary censorship in Australia as sparked by the publication of Philip Roth’s novel Portnoy’s Complaint. It was published by Scribe in June 2020. Patrick completed a PhD at the University of Canberra in 2014, where he worked thereafter as a lecturer and tutor in the writing and journalism programs. He retains an honorary appointment at the university as an adjunct assistant professor in the Centre for Creative and Cultural Research.

The health and wellbeing of doctors is not an abstract issue or vain professional self-indulgence. There is clear evidence that doctors who are healthy and clear-thinking provide better patient care and are less likely to make errors or be subject to complaints. However there is a long tradition among doctors to place a low priority on their own wellbeing. Steve Robson is the immediate past-president of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. As an intern in a small rural town in the 1980s his attempt at suicide was interrupted purely by chance - or so he thought for 30 years. After three decades of shame during which he did not confide in anybody Steve published an article about his own experience that drew international attention. He had always felt that the death of a patient under his care as a junior doctor was one on the contributors to his mental state at the time - but was the truth far worse?

Mr Gregory Barns SC is an Australian barrister, author, political commentator, company director and former political candidate based in Hobart, Tasmania. He practices law in the area of human rights and criminal defence in both Melbourne and Hobart and took silk in Tasmania in May 2020. Greg is the author of three books on Australian politics and writes regularly for the Hobart Mercury, the South China Morning Post and The Drum.

Dr Linda Iles is a graduate of the University of Tasmania. She has worked as a consultant forensic pathologist at the University of Glasgow and at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, where she has been head of forensic pathology services for the past five years. She has an interest in forensic neuropathology, post mortem radiological imaging in forensic pathology practice and developing forensic pathology capacity in under resourced countries. In 2018 and 2019 she was engaged by the World Health Organisation to undertake medicolegal death investigations into the death of two infants following vaccination, and subsequently into a number of deaths in the measles emergency that followed. On July 6 2018, two 1 year old infants died shortly after receiving the Measles Mumps Rubella (MMR) vaccine. Events over the following months amplified this tragedy. Dr Iles will describe the investigation into these deaths, and the events that culminated in an epidemic that saw the deaths of 83 people, predominantly children, in the Pacific nation

Further information to follow shortly.

To view the Webinar that was held on August 25, 2020 please open the full page on the 'more information' link below and click on the link. The transcript is also available on this page.

Living with COVID19: The New Normal This year a beta coronavirus since named SARS-CoV-2 originating in Wuhan, (China), spread throughout the world causing a respiratory and inflammatory disease which has become known as COVID-19. This virus has infected millions of people, hundreds of thousands have lost their lives and many more have had their livelihoods significantly threatened. This pandemic has disrupted the way we travel, work, communicate and interact at all levels. The reality that we may never return to life ‘before coronavirus’ (BC) is becoming apparent. It is time to contemplate the ‘new normal’, life ‘after coronavirus’ (AC).