Presented by Associate Professor David Caldicott

Bio: Associate Professor David Caldicott is an Emergency Consultant at the Emergency Department of the Calvary Hospital in Canberra and a Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine at the Australian National University. He is a spokesperson for the Australian Science Media Centre on issues of illicit drug use and the medical response to terrorism and disasters.

David is the author of the ‘Bombs, Blasts and Bullets’ course, designed as a primer for first Australian responders to terrorist incidents. He maintains an active interest and involvement in the mass gathering medicine field, particularly in regards to music festivals. He has extensive experience with in situ “pill-testing / drug checking” in the Australian context.

David designed and piloted the Welsh Emergency Department Investigation of Novel Substances (WEDINOS) project in the UK, a unique program using regional emergency departments as sentinel monitoring hubs for the emergence and spread of novel illicit products. He is currently replicating this work in Australia with the ACT Investigation of Novel Substances (ACTINOS) Group, under the Australian Drug Observatory at the ANU for which he is the Clinical Lead.

David has published widely in the peer-reviewed literature, and presents nationally and internationally on the subject of the use of the emergency department as an observatory for the surveillance of novel psychotropic substances as they evolve, as well as their effects in acute overdose.