Past lectures

Lectures from more recent years, together with invited speakers, are listed below. Recorded lectures can be accessed via the topic link.

Year Lecturer Topic
2023 Professor John Haldane “Ableism: a malady of modern medical decision making”
2022 Dr Xavier Symons

"Welcome the stranger! Rediscovering the art of hospitality in a 21st century hospital"

The transcript of Dr Symons' lecture can be found in the March 2022 edition of Bioethics Outlook.

2020 Dr William F Sullivan “Ableism: a malady of modern medical decision making”
2019 Professor Julian Hughes

"To thine own self be true!" Reflections on authenticity, citizenship and dementia.

View the recording of the 2019 Plunkett Lecture

Listen via ABC's Big Ideas website

2018 Professor Daniel Sulmasy MD PhD MACP, Professor of Biomedical Ethics, Georgetown University, Washington DC

Should we take away Hippocrates' licence? Professionalism, conscience and tolerance in a good society

View the recording of the 2018 Plunkett lecture

Listen via ABC's Big Ideas website

2017 Most Reverend Anthony Fisher OP, Archbishop of Sydney Drive-thru healthcare: is there more to the healing relationship than supply and demand?
2016 Mr Mark Tedeschi AM QC,NSW Senior Crown Prosecutor and author of Murder at Myall Creek John Hubert Plunkett: The Martin Luther King of colonial Australia and prosecutor of the Myall Creek massacre trials
2015 Associate Professor Justin Oakley, Monash University What should surgical patients be told? The value and limits of medical transparency.
2014 Professor Wendy Rogers, Macquarie University Over diagnosis: when too much medicine is bad for your health!
2013 Dr Steve Matthews, ACU Musical memories and the way we were: musical therapy in progressive cognitive impairment.
2012 Dr Andrew McGee, Queensland University of Technology My brain, my mind, my body: implications for stem cell research, end of life and organ donation.
2011 Dr Paul Biegler, Monash University The ethical treatment of depression: shortcomings in contemporary practice.
2010 Dr John Forge, University of Sydney The responsible scientist: ethical challenges of research and practice.
2009 Prof Greg Craven, ACU and Mr Edward Santow, University of Sydney Human rights laws: a benefit to patients, participants in research, residents in nursing homes?

Have a question?

We're available 9am–5pm AEDT,
Monday to Friday

If you’ve got a question, our AskACU team has you covered. You can search FAQs, text us, email, live chat, call – whatever works for you.

Live chat with us now

Chat to our team for real-time
answers to your questions.

Launch live chat

Visit our FAQs page

Find answers to some commonly
asked questions.

See our FAQs