Dr Hitchcock’s ‘Slow Medicine’

Dr Karen Hitchcock, PhD

Double doctor Karen Hitchcock embraces both art and science. Gaining her Bachelor of Medicine in 2003 from the University of Newcastle, Karen has been a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College Physicians since 2013. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) and a Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature. Karen writes both fiction and non-fiction books on medicine and society and has been a columnist and essayist for the Monthly magazine since 2012. Her first book of 13 short stories won the 2010 Steel Rudd award.

Karen led a fast-paced life as wife, mother and doctor in major metropolitan hospitals for fifteen years before moving into private practice and out to country Australia. She now lives on small acreage about an hour from Melbourne where she writes, grows trees, and embraces “slow medicine.”

Similar to slow food, slow medicine is based on the idea that many health challenges are caused by the relentless pace of modern life pushing us out of balance. It encourages people to take time to identify the root causes of health problems and implement long-term changes that restore balance.

Karen often refers to a study that revealed workers whose office faced a carpark tended to get sick more often than workers in the same building that could gaze out on plants and greenery. For Karen, moving to the country has been a key step toward better balance in her own life.

Working with greenery of a different kind, Dr Hitchcock was one of Australia’s first authorised prescribers of medicinal cannabis. Now four years into doctoring at a general medicine clinic, Karen travels into Melbourne 1-2 times a week where she focuses on medicinal cannabis patients and conditions like pain, insomnia, anxiety, and restless leg syndrome.

Karen also teams up occasionally with psychiatrist Dr Nigel Strauss to educate fellow clinicians on grand rounds in hospitals. Together at Garden States 2022 they will present Medicinal cannabis: The word on the street...  Their presentation will cover;

·         the endocannabinoid system

·         medicinal cannabis formulations

·         getting a medicinal cannabis prescription

·         risks and benefits medicinal cannabis

·         cannabis as a psychedelic

Come and learn from Dr Hitchcock and a plethora of other green experts and enjoy our psychedelic and ethnobotanical event. Perhaps we could call Garden States 2022 a slow conference; community and science learning promoting growth at the pace of plants.