Hard To Bear
Participating Chair: Gabrielle Jackson • Isabelle Oderberg and Dr Neela Janakiramanan
A vital and taboo-busting conversation about medical misogyny, miscarriage and the ways our health system silences women.
Artist
ISABELLE ODERBERG has worked as a journalist for two decades in newswires across Europe, Asia and Australia, where she was the country’s first social media editor for Melbourne’s Herald Sun. She is a former editor of Pro Bono News and has worked as a media and communications strategist across the not-for-profit sector. She is now the Deputy CEO of the Public Interest Journalism Initiative. Hard to Bear: Investigating the science and silence of miscarriage is her first book.
Artist
DR NEELA JANAKIRAMANAN is a reconstructive plastic surgeon, author, commentator and health advocate. She was a clinical lead in the Kids off Nauru and ‘Medevac’ campaigns to improve access to healthcare for refugees and asylum seekers in offshore migration detention. She is a health commentator, writing for publications including Women’s Agenda, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald and The Saturday Paper, and regularly appears on ABC Weekend Breakfast and ABCs The Drum. Her bestselling debut novel, The Registrar, was released in 2022.
PARTICIPATING CHAIR
GABRIELLE JACKSON is the associate editor for audio and visual at Guardian Australia. She is the author of Pain and Prejudice: How the Medical System Ignores Women – and What We Can Do About It, and won the 2016 Medicinewise award for excellence in media reporting for her work covering endometriosis. She also sits on the Walkleys Judging Board.