Rate My Professor Katharine Wallis

Professor Katharine Wallis is the Mayne Professor and Head of the Mayne Academy of General Practice and Head of the General Practice Clinical Unit at the University of Queensland Medical School. A clinically active general practitioner and Fellow of the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine, she earned her MBChB, Doctor of Philosophy focused on patient safety in primary care, Master of Bioethics and Health Law with distinction, and Diploma of Obstetrics from the University of Otago. She also holds Fellowship of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners. Originally trained in New Zealand, her career bridges clinical practice, bioethics, health law, and research dedicated to elevating primary health care standards.

Katharine’s primary research focus is safer prescribing in general practice to optimize patient outcomes, including co-leadership of the RELEASE program on redressing long-term antidepressant use. Her interests extend to deprescribing among older adults, patient safety in primary care, cardiovascular disease risk prediction, and medical assessments for older drivers. Significant projects include the Safer Prescribing and Care for the Elderly (SPACE) cluster randomized controlled trial, Patient Harms in New Zealand General Practices records review (SHARP), and the 3-Domains screening toolkit for older driver fitness. Key publications comprise 'Antidepressant Prescribing in Australian Primary Care: Time to Reevaluate' (Medical Journal of Australia, 2026; 2025), 'Lessons from the Netherlands for Australia: cross-country comparison of trends in antidepressant dispensing 2013–2021' (Australian Journal of Primary Health, 2024), '3-Domains screening toolkit for medical assessment of older drivers: feasibility study in Australian general practice' (Australian Journal of General Practice, 2023), 'Learning from no-fault treatment injury claims to improve the safety of older patients' (Annals of Family Medicine, 2015), and 'No-fault compensation for treatment injury in New Zealand: identifying threats to patient safety in primary care' (BMJ Quality and Safety, 2011). She secures funding from NHMRC Partnership Projects, MRFF grants, and Health Research Council New Zealand for initiatives on deprescribing, rural digital health, and primary care innovations. Through these efforts, Professor Wallis translates evidence into practical resources and fosters international collaborations to enhance general practice.