Media

THE SUFFERINGS OF
'SYDNEY'S TOP RATBAG'

ABC RADIO - CONVERSATIONS

RADIO

During the 1920s, people on Sydney's North Shore were often taken aback by the sight of a young woman riding a man's pushbike, wearing a formal dress and a tennis cap while blowing a whistle. The woman was the late Bea Miles, who became one of the city's most famous eccentrics.

Bea was startingly intelligent, and studied medicine at University when it was unusual for women to do so. In the first year of her studies she fell ill with a disease called Encephalitis Lethargica. After she recovered, Bea's personality had changed.Eventually her father had her committed to Sydney's Gladesville hospital.

Bea spent many years in asylums, at a time when the 'treatments' they offered were usually extreme sedation, and drugs to induce vomiting.

Psychiatrist Robert Kaplan has written a new chapter in Bea's story after gaining access to her medical files and her diaries.

3 DEC 2018
47 min (21MB)

WHY 24 APRIL MATTERS:

THE STORY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

ABC RADIO - OCKHAM'S RAZOR

RADIO

Clinical Associate Professor Robert Kaplan is a forensic psychiatrist and historian from the University of Wollongong.
He tells the story of the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians by the Turks, which is commemorated on April 24..

29 APR 2010
12 min (6MB)

SCHIZOPHRENIA AND THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN NATURE

ABC RADIO - OCKHAM'S RAZOR

RADIO

In this ABC radio episode Forensic Psychiatrist Robert Kaplan from Wollongong talks about the history of schizophrenia and 2008 being the centenary of the naming of the illness known as schizophrenia. Forensic Psychiatrist Robert Kaplan looks at a number of past medical serial killers and talks about events in Queensland where former Bundaberg-based surgeon Dr Jayant Patel is under investigation for the deaths of numerous patients under his care.

13 APR 2008
13 min (6MB)

SAVONAROLA AT THE STAKE

THE RISE AND FALL OF PROFESSOR SIR ROY MEADOW

ABC RADIO - OCKHAM'S RAZOR

RADIO

In this ABC radio episode Forensic Psychiatrist Robert Kaplan from Wollongong talks about the case of Professor Sir Roy Meadow who was the leading British doctor who pursued mothers and fathers who abused their children, particularly those suffering from Munchhausen's Syndrome by Proxy, a condition where mothers of children kept visiting doctors claiming that their children were ill and who were found to harm them to maintain illness symptoms.

4 NOV 2007
14 min (6MB)

MEDICAL SERIAL KILLER

ABC RADIO NATIONAL - THE HEALTH REPORT

RADIO

In this ABC radio episode Forensic Psychiatrist Robert Kaplan from Wollongong looks at a number of past medical serial killers and talks about events in Queensland where former Bundaberg-based surgeon Dr Jayant Patel is under investigation for the deaths of numerous patients under his care.

18 JUL 2005
29 min (14MB)