Dr Bot: Why Doctors Can Fail Us – and How AI Could Save Lives

Please join us for an exciting seminar exploring the potential role of AI in healthcare, featuring Dr Charlotte Blease.

Please join the Institute for Musculoskeletal Health (IMH), the Sydney Musculoskeletal Research Centre (SydneyMSK), the Sydney Health Partners Musculoskeletal (SHP MSK) Clinical Academic Group (CAG) and Wiser Healthcare for an engaging in‑person seminar exploring the potential role of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare.

The session will open with Dr Charlotte Blease. who will present on her new book, Dr Bot: Why Doctors Can Fail Us — and How AI Could Save Lives. A panel discussion will follow, moderated by Professor Kirsten McCaffery, with Dr Blease joined by Dr Michael Bonning, offering a clinician's perspective, and Ms Louise Hardy, offering a consumer's perspective.

📅 When: Wednesday, 25 February 2026

🕗 12 - 1 PM: Networking Lunch

🕘 1 - 2 PM: Seminar and panel discussion

📍 Where (in-person only): Charles Perkins Centre Auditorium, University of Sydney

👉 REGISTER NOW if you plan to attend, and for catering purposes.

Originally from Belfast, Dr Charlotte Blease is a health informaticist and Associate Professor in Health Informatics at Uppsala University, Sweden, as well as a Research Affiliate in Digital Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. With nearly 20 years of experience across the US, Europe, and the UK, she has held research positions in philosophy, psychology, medicine, and medical humanities, and is currently a Visiting Professor at the University of Melbourne.

Charlotte has published over 160 peer‑reviewed articles and is the author of Dr Bot: Why Doctors Can Fail Us and How AI Could Save Lives (Yale University Press, 2025), and co‑author of The Nocebo Effect: When Words Make You Sick (Mayo Clinic Press, 2024).

💬 Panel discussion with leading experts

Panel Discussion Moderator: Professor Kirsten McCaffery
Kirsten is an NHMRC Principal Research Fellow at the Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney. She has a national and international reputation in shared decision‑making, health literacy, and the assessment of psychosocial outcomes, and has had four successive NHMRC fellowships. She is Director of Policy and Prevention at the School of Public Health and Director of the Sydney Health Literacy Lab, a group of 35 researchers and students, at the University of Sydney.

Panellist: Dr Michael Bonning
Michael is an Australian-qualified medical practitioner with extensive experience in health policy advisory to Government, non-profit and corporations. He is the immediate past president of the NSW AMA. During his 13 years with the Royal Australian Navy he has deployed on multiple international operations, whilst concurrently building a health advisory consulting firm and serving on some of Australia's most influential health-focused boards. He is a sought-after speaker on physician health, healthcare leadership and public health as a result of his unique experiences across government, leadership and medicine.

Panellist: Ms Louise Hardy

Louise Hardy is the CEO of Arthritis Australia, and Deputy Chair of the Consumers Health Forum of Australia. Louise has over 15 years of health sector experience, spanning roles in regulation, operations, and policy and advocacy across government, membership organisations and charities, including as General Manager of Policy and Advocacy at the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.