The Dean’s Lecture Series is UNSW Medicine’s signature event and one of the largest faculty-based events on campus. The free lectures seek to debate and highlight the world’s most topical health challenges. This lecture's theme is the 'rising tide of mental ill health, suicide and substance use in young Australians: 21st century challenges and solutions'.
Speakers:
Professor Patrick McGorry AO
Professor Patrick McGorry AO is a leading international researcher, clinician and advocate for mental health reform.
Professor McGorry is Executive Director of Orygen Youth Health, a world-renowned mental health organisation for young people that has put Australia at the forefront of innovation in the prevention and treatment of mental illness. Orygen targets the needs of young people with emerging serious mental illness, including first-episode psychosis and has become the model upon which many other youth mental health services in the world are based.
Professor McGorry is also a director of the National Youth Mental Health Foundation (headspace). He believes that early intervention offers the greatest hope for recovery and therefore takes every opportunity to educate the community to recognise the early signs of mental illness, without stigmatising or discriminating.
Professor McGorry was named as Australian of the Year in January 2010 in recognition of "his extraordinary 27-year contribution to the improvement of the youth mental health sector [that] has transformed the lives of tens of thousands of young people the world over."
Professor Michael Farrell
MB BCh BAO LRCP & SI Honours in Medicine
Professor Michael Farrell is the Director of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) at the University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW. He moved to Sydney from London in March 2011 following his appointment to NDARC. He did his original undergraduate training in Dublin Ireland, and worked in London for over 20 years where he was a Consultant Addiction Psychiatrist in the Maudsley Hospital and a Professor of Addiction Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London. His extensive research interests include treatment evaluation, drug dependence in prisons, Evidence Based Practice and Treatment Evaluation, translation of new evidence into practice, as well as broad based population studies based on the UK National Psychiatric Morbidity Programme. He has published over 200 scientific papers and has undertaken a wide range of work for international agencies and for National Governments on aspects of National Drug Policies.
Facilitator:
Associate Professor Gordian Fulde
Associate Professor Gordian Fulde is the Director of the Emergency Department at St Vincent’s Hospital and is the longest serving Emergency Department Director in a major hospital in Australia.
As an Aossciate Professor at UNSW Medicine's St Vincent's Clinical School, Profesor Fulde is actively involved in teaching and training students and staff in many facets of medicine and emergency medicine as well as consistently contributing and offering his time to many schools and organisations in the community. He is passionately outspoken about alcohol-fuelled injuries and the unnecessary violence that regularly brings people into the ER, particularly young people.
This event is open to all - UNSW alumni, donors, staff, local community and others. We look forward to welcoming you to UNSW to keep up to date and be informed in an interactive forum that includes some of the world’s greatest medical researchers as well as our significant home-grown talent.
The event is a recipient of an “Inspiring Australia” grant from the Commonwealth Government and a NSW State Science Discovery Grant as a result of our ability to bring science and health issues to the community at large.