We’re back for 2022 and now that’s school is in session we spoke to Prof Brendan McMullan about COVID19 in children. We discussed what COVID19 is like for kids, vaccination, current treatments and transmission. 

In our last episode for 2021, Kristin chats with Professor Ian Hickie, co-Director of the Brain and Mind Centre at the University of Sydney. We chat about treatment-resistant depression and learn all about the “happy accident'“ of esketamine.

Dan is joined by Professor Robyn Guymer AM from the Centre for Eye Research in Australia to discuss Age-related macular degeneration (AMD). 

We’re back! And Dan is joined by Professor Dave Coghill, a Child Psychiatrist and  Chair of Developmental Mental Health at the University of Melbourne.

We discuss ADHD - an overview of its epidemiology and diagnosis, as well as existing and emerging treatments.

Kristin caught up with Conjoint Professor Michael Bennett AM (Academic Head, Wales Anaesthesia and Dept. Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine Prince of Wales Clinical School) to discuss Hyperbaric Medicine. It is used to treat decompression illness, carbon monoxide poisoning, necrotising infections, soft tissue & bony radiation injury and chronic non healing wounds.

Dan and Jane caught up with our friend Dr Nisha Khot, who is the Clinical Director of Obstetrics at Djerriwarrh Health Service in Victoria. We discuss the screening, management and impact of a wide variety of infections in pregnancy, including CMV, syphilis, COVID-19 and GBA. We briefly discuss listeria, to Nisha’s chagrin.

You should definitely follow Nisha on twitter

In a bumper episode, Kristin talks with ID physician and clinical microbiologist with Westmead Hospital and the Institute Of Clinical Pathology And Medical Research (ICPMR) Dr Indy Sandaradura.

They discuss all things clinical microbiology, from how tests are run to how microbiologists decide what to report, in terms of sensitivities and positive results.

Indy helps us understand why we still do Gram staining, first developed by Danish scientist Hans Christian Gram in 1884.

Kristin caught up with Dr David Woo, an Ophthalmic and Oculoplastics surgeon from the Sight Foundation at the Sydney Eye Hospital and the Sydney CBD eye clinic. We chat about orbital and periorbital cellulitis and other serious eye infections - including the red flags that differentiate these from common eye infections.

To find out more about Dr David, visit his website

Kristin was joined by Prof Sam Berkovic, Laureate Professor in the Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne, and Director of the Epilepsy Research Centre at Austin Health.

They discuss the diagnosis, treatment and management of epilepsy, including emerging therapies.

Visit Prof Berkovic’s University profile or the Epilepsy Research Centre’s website for a list of his research.

Kristin chats to Professor David Kissane about psycho-existential symptoms in Palliative Care. David is a consultant psychiatrist in psycho-oncology and palliative care at Monash Health and the Department of Psychiatry at Monash University.

We talk about:

• the current state of palliative care in Australia

• why patients are are often scared of commencing palliative care

• Differences in palliative care patient experience in the context of oncology

• An exploration of the terms psycho-oncology and the existential approach

• the role of pharmacotherapy in psycho-oncology