Dr Marg Ross - Kicking off Australia's psychedelic medicine revolution

Dr Marg Ross is a senior psychologist working in Palliative Care at St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne, and the clinical lead in Australia’s first ever psychedelic medicine trial, which is  looking at psilocybin and psychotherapy for end of life depression and anxiety.

Marg had watched what was going on in the Northern Hemisphere with interest and waited for somebody to get a study off the ground in Australia before deciding nothing was going to happen in a hurry - so she’d better do it herself. It took a year to get approval from ethics committees, federal and state authorities, and then the study faced further delays when COVID hit. 

We talked with Marg about the challenges of getting approval for psychedelic research and the very real stigma and risk researchers can face, the sense of privilege she has felt working with the few patients who were treated in her trial before COVID intervened, what psychedelic therapy might look like in mainstream clinical use and why palliative care is such a magnet for this kind of work.

Marg was so much fun to interview, despite the seriousness of the topic at hand - and we loved having both an Australasian and female voice to add to the mix.