Psychiatrist and would-be international DJ Prathap Tharyan joins Ray from his home in India this week to explore a fascinating fraction of his work, life and philosophy.

Prathap’s wide-ranging agenda reflects a decidedly down-to-earth and original take on understanding and improving the human condition. Be it tending to victims of the Boxing Day tsunami, ensuring humanistic care for the homeless or working with Wikipedia to get better health information to millions around the globe – people and evidence are always at the very centre of his many and varied activities.

Prathap is a leading advocate for evidence-based approaches in Asia, and his work with people in the midst of humanitarian crises has consistently shown that good intentions are no substitute for good evidence.

Paul Glasziou (aka The Surfing Professor) joins Ray this week to share insights from his stellar career as both a family doctor in Brisbane and a global evidence guru at Oxford and Bond Universities. He explores big picture health issues like overdiagnosis, overtreatment and the implications of genomic testing, alongside important questions for our everyday health - like how you can find and use evidence and put it to good use when visiting or choosing your own doctor or specialist.

At one point Ray braves a chilly Gold Coast beach at the crack of dawn to find Paul and his close colleague/best surfing buddy Professor Chris Del Mar catching waves, spotting whales and agreeing that fun is actually a surprisingly essential part of serious research work.  

This week Professor Jimmy Volmink joins Ray to trace an extraordinary personal and professional journey that defied the odds. From his childhood with little educational opportunity in apartheid South Africa to a stellar international research career, he shares the critical moments, chance meetings and inspiring influences that have shaped his life and work. 

Jimmy's journey reflects the incredible social, political and human rights struggles of twentieth century South Africa. His current role at Stellenbosch - one of South Africa’s most pre-eminent universities - is itself a striking testament to the kind of change he has witnessed, worked towards and continues to advocate for. When he applied to study at Stellenbosch back in the 1980s, Jimmy was turned down because he was black. Almost four decades later, he holds the prestigious position of Dean of Medicine and Health Sciences at that very same university. Here, Jimmy shares with Ray how this and many other formative experiences have led to his lifelong, unwavering commitment to support and mentor new generations of students in South Africa, and to keep on 'banging the drum about inequality' to affect real change.

This week Ray catches up with Professor Lisa Bero - one of the world’s leading experts on industry influence on science. Her groundbreaking research continues to show how the tactics of big tobacco, big pharma and increasingly the food industry influence the decisions of health professionals and distort research findings. 

Lisa’s current work looks at how private companies are now influencing public health in areas like obesity. Late last year, it was discovered that her research was being secretly ‘monitored’ by Coca-Cola. Here she talks to Ray about this revelation and various attempts by both the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries to undermine her research over the years. While it has never hampered her work, she is concerned about the chilling effect these kinds of antics might have on younger researchers today.

Lisa also shares her thoughts on leaving California to become a fully-fledged, ocean-swimming Sydneysider, who finds daily inspiration in the story of Charles Perkins – the first Aboriginal graduate of The University of Sydney. She also reflects on her role heading up the global Cochrane research network and highlights the importance of health evidence that’s free from conflicts of interest or commercial influence of any kind. For more information about Lisa and links to her work, see our shownotes.

Described as one of world's most prominent psychiatrists, Dr Allen Frances recently made the controversial claim that 'Donald Trump isn't mad, we are'. In this episode, he shares the thinking behind this now infamous statement that attracted both praise and condemnation from mental health professionals and media around the globe. 

He also talks to Ray about the influential psychiatric manual of mental disorders, the DSM-5. Once a major author of the manual, now he's become one of its loudest critics - claiming that ever-expanding disease and disorder definitions are turning more and more of our ordinary lives into mental illness.

Who better to kick off a series on all things health and evidence than the exceptional and erudite Editor-in-Chief of The BMJ, Dr Fiona Godlee.

In this episode, Fiona chats to Ray about the BMJ's ongoing and often controversial campaigns to change medicine - and broader society - for the better. She also looks to a future that addresses the distorting influence of industry funding on health evidence and outcomes, and let's us in on what drives and inspires her to achieve so much in her influential role at the helm of one of the world's oldest, most popular and prestigious journals.

A little more about us...

Ray

Ray is a man with many hats - all of them very impressive... Currently a Senior Research Fellow at Bond University’s Centre for Research in Evidence-Based Practice, and an NHMRC Early Career Fellow, he is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and author. 

Ray spent plenty of time as a producer at the ABC’s flagship investigative TV program Four Corners, as a reporter at the ABC TV’s 7:30 Report and as a presenter on Radio National. He’s written 4 books on the business of medicine, including Selling Sickness, which has been translated into 12 languages. He's also a former Harkness fellow at Harvard University, has been a columnist with the BMJ and the Medical Journal of Australia, and has also had original research published in The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, PLOS Medicine and the British Medical Journal - to name a few. Regularly interviewed by media globally, and invited to speak around the world, Ray has a long-time interest in the evidence-informed approach and the work of Cochrane.  

The TRD Team

The Recommended Dose is produced in Melbourne by Cochrane Australia's Shauna Hurley, with much excellent help from our team of editors Jan Muths, Liam Blake, Tim Morizet and Ben Griggs. 
 
Our eye-catching orange artwork and assorted imagery is all thanks to Chris Scanlan at Visualism.

For more details or to suggest a guest for the show, email us at media@cochrane.org.au

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