Meet your MC, Molly Carlile AM

We're delighted to announce Molly Carlile AM will be the Master of Ceremonies for the inaugural Voluntary Assisted Dying Conference 2023, co-hosted by VADANZ and Go Gentle Australia.

Molly will be known to many of you as a multi-award winning death and grief specialist, palliative care activist, author and international speaker. She was made a Member of the Order of Australia for her groundbreaking work helping Australian communities get more informed and confident talking about death. She is a former member of Victoria's VAD Review Board.

Molly sat down with us to answer a few questions...

Molly, why is this Voluntary Assisted Dying Conference important?

It's the first time everyone working on the implementation of VAD will have the chance to meet. We'll have all the leading lights in VAD from Australia and New Zealand in one place. That auditorium in Sydney will be electric - I can't wait.

The first day is just for clinicians, and having that safe space to discuss our experiences is really important for everyone.

What do you hope the conference will achieve?

We'll bring together more than 200 VAD clinicians and health leaders - that's an enormous number - to discuss the most pressing issues in VAD practice. By the end of the conference, we should have a detailed picture of what's working well, where we need to improve, and how we can work together with the community to get there.

And what are you most looking forward to at the conference?

Networking events are always a highlight. The arts have been a passion of mine and I love that we're now using them in more innovative ways to explore death and grief. I'm looking forward to having a chat with renowned portrait photographer Julian Kingma about The Power of Choice exhibition at the evening networking events.

I know tickets are going fast - I'm not surprised. Julian has taken photos of people on their individual VAD paths and some of the doctors in the photos will actually be in the room. The project doesn't actually wrap up until 2024, so this is your chance to get an exclusive first look - and perhaps even become involved.

The first night is sold out - but please join the waitlist here. If we get a lot more interest, we'll look for a bigger space!