Webinar: Treating Doctors with Mental Health Challenges

Host

Dr Elise Witter
AMA Queensland Committee of Doctors Chair
Prison Mental Health Psychiatry Registrar

Dr Elise Witter has worked and studied in a variety of regional, rural and remote settings, including with the Royal Flying Doctors' Service in Lockhart River. Currently working in mental health at Cairns Hospital, she has a passion for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, promoting doctor-in-training wellbeing and ensuring equity in educational and vocational opportunities for the rural and remote medical workforce. She has an extensive background in advocacy, which she hopes to harness to improve the experience of doctors training in rural and remote Australia. 

Dr Anelisa De Souza 
General Practitioner

Dr Anelisa de Souza has been a practitioner member of the Queensland Board of the Medical Board of Australia (MBA) since 2020 and previously was a member of the Tasmanian Board of the MBA ( 2017-2019). She currently chairs the Notifications Committee 2 of the Queensland Board.

Anelisa is a General Practitioner working on the Gold Coast, she is a RACGP Fellowship examiner and PESCI Panel member. She is also experienced in international medical graduate and registrar supervision/education. 

Anelisa is originally from Brazil and has lived in Australia for the past 15 years. She is passionate about patient safety, medical regulation and General Practice with focus on women's and children's health. 

Heather Edwards
AHPRA State Manager for Queensland

Heather Edwards joined Ahpra in July 2019 in the newly created state manager role responsible for stakeholder engagement. 

Before joining Ahpra, Heather worked in in the public health sector where her last position was leading and supporting the 16 Queensland hospital and health service chief executives and the multidisciplinary executive director groups.  That work focused on statewide service strategy and improvement, engagement, expert technical advice and knowledge and information management.

Heather is a registered nurse and midwife and spent her early career working in maternal and child health and child development. She has additional tertiary qualifications in health promotion and prevention, health leadership and management, and public policy. Heather has executive and board experience and is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. 

Heather is passionate about the delivery of and equitable access to safe and quality public health services.  Her focus in Ahpra is on connecting people with the National Scheme. Heather believes safer accessible healthcare, better regulation of practitioners and trust in the National regulator can be achieved through actively engaging with practitioners, different and diverse communities, governments, and employers.

Dr Israel Berger 
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Registrar

Dr Israel Berger has lived experience of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. He has been speaking about his experiences as a doctor with mental health difficulties since 2022. He has 17 years of experience in the field of mental health, having completed his PhD in Psychology at the University of Roehampton before attending medical school at the University of Sydney. He is currently a Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Registrar. 

Dr Kym Jenkins
Consultant Psychiatrist

Dr Monica Vogiatzis
Psychiatry Registrar

Dr Sabrina Davidson
Psychiatry Registrar