Health Check
Mildura Writers Festival
Dr Karen Hitchcock has written candidly about the frontline of medical treatment, investigating questions like what happens when a doctor kills a patient, are GPs overprescribing antidepressants, does ‘female Viagra’ work and what role can psychedelics and cannabis play in treating pain? Her book
Dear Life, On Caring for the Elderly, explores the good and bad of caring for the elderly, end-of-life decisions and over-treatment, frailty, and dementia.
The festival’s opening night explores the big issues in society. This deep dive into our health care system with a seasoned practitioner with over 20 years of experience is sure to inform and provoke.
Dr Karen Hitchcock Bio
Dr Karen Hitchcock is a general physician whose clinical work has focused on pain, fatigue, medically unexplained symptoms, and obesity. She has worked in major metropolitan and regional hospitals for over 20 years. Hitchcock was an associate investigator and trial therapist in the St. Vincent's Hospital Melbourne study of psilocybin assisted psychotherapy in palliative care and was one of the first authorised prescribers of medicinal cannabis in Australia. Hitchcock holds a PhD in English and writes regular essays for
The Monthly. She is the author of
The Medicine: A Doctor’s Notes, the Quarterly Essay
Dear Life, the nonfiction book
Dear Life, On Caring for the Elderly, and the story collection
Little White Slips, which won the Steele Rudd award in the 2010 Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards.
If you have a Companion Card, experience issues with stairs or require a wheelchair space please contact the Box Office on 03 5018 8330 between 10am - 4pm, daily to book your seats.
