| LESS THAN 3 WEEKS TO GO Conference Program hereIn this issue we introduce Assoc Professor Peter Parry, our plenary speaker at the upcoming CMAA conference. Peter has 30 years of child & adolescent psychiatry experience in SA, Qld and the UK. His PhD, titled “Paediatric Bipolar Disorder: Why did it occur?” led him to examine and question the iatrogenic consequences and implications for medical ethics and psychiatric nosology in this area and many others within healthcare. He will discuss the importance of truth in medicine in the current era. Also in this issue, the CMAA conference made the news in the Catholic Weekly and Cath News. The CMAA wrote to Queensland Children’s Hospital urging Dr Jillian Spencer’s termination notice to be rescinded.The letter is attached below. A Catholic school in Victoria faces challenges by a ‘transgender’ teacher on pronouns and an article about the harms of pornography and its association with violence and the murder of Charlie Kirk. And a leading public health official finally admits the covid era directives were ‘unnecessary’ and ‘useless’…not to mention harmful. Read more here. Join A/Prof Parry in October at our national conference. Register here. If you can’t join us, sponsor a student.MEET A/PROF PETER PARRYA/Prof Peter Parry is a child & adolescent psychiatrist working in private practice at Northside Child & Youth Psychiatry. He is affiliated as an associate professor with the University of Queensland and as a visiting senior lecturer with Flinders University in South Australia. He graduated from Adelaide University in 1983, worked as a medical officer in the Royal Australian Navy, then general practice and palliative care until he commenced psychiatry training in 1990. For more bio information, click here.SPONSOR A STUDENTWe are hoping to sponsor up to ten Catholic medical and healthcare students to attend the national conference and dinner. If you are not able to attend in person, or just want to support the future of Catholic healthcare, please consider sponsoring a student by purchasing one or more of the student sponsorship tickets. CMAA WRITES TO QCHOn Friday 26th of September the CMAA wrote a letter to Adjunct Professor Frank Tracey, the Health Service Chief Executive Queensland Children’s Hospital,”calling upon the QCH to rescind its decision to terminate the employment of Child Psychiatrist, Dr Jillian Spencer…..”. The response by Professor Tracey is also attached below.Read CMAA letterRead QCH ReplyCMAA MAKES THE NEWSThe Catholic Weekly recently wrote an article about the upcoming CMAA conference… “Truth and Integrity in Medicine” is the theme of this year’s Catholic Medical Association of Australia conference, to be held in Melbourne in October. Innocuous as those words might seem, in today’s climate they can be dangerous, says the CMAA chair, Dr Eamonn Mathieson. “Many doctors that have spoken what is true in the public space are being sanctioned,“To speak about the Catholic understanding about the truth of the human person, whether it’s in the context of abortion, whether it’s in the context of gender, can invite professional sanction and notifications from regulatory authorities.” Read more here CathNews, the newsletter of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, also reported on the upcoming conference, describing the conference’s “Dantean progression,” with a “transition that moves from the darkness of the Inferno through Purgatorio and into Paradiso” which would include speakers like Professor David Kissane, an internationally-renowned expert on end-of-life care, and Professor Hayden Ramsey, president of the Catholic Institute of Sydney. Read more hereTRANSGENDER SHOWDOWN IN CATHOLIC SCHOOLA teacher is taking legal action over a Victorian Catholic school’s refusal of pronouns.This story may well lead to showdown between the Church and the State over fundamental issues of freedom of religion and Church State relations in the setting of education.Read more hereSUTTON ADMITS COVID DIRECTIVES ‘NEVER NECESSARY’Former Victorian chief health officer Brett Sutton has finally admitted some Covid-era orders were useless and that evidence was based on “a best guess”. Read more here. A report by Cairns News provides context and background for this recent admission, including the de-registration of doctors, many of them Catholic doctors, including Dr Mark Hobart, who challenged the ethics of the ‘unnecessary’ and harmful directives.Read more hereRead Article‘FURRIES’ AND THE VIOLENCE OF PORNOGRAPHYThis First Things article discusses the issue of pornography in the context of the murder of Charlie Kirk by the alleged assassin Tyler Robinson. “Pornography is a hallucinogen. It reframes human sexuality in utterly unreal ways. Characters in pornographic content portray sex the way Harry Potter portrays magic: as something that can happen for anyone, at any time, to any degree imaginable. For young men in particular, this narrative of sex cultivates a deeply dissonant conception of personhood and intimacy, one that is |
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