Keynote Speakers
International Keynote Speaker - Jennifer L. Gaudiani
Jennifer L. Gaudiani, MD, CEDS-S, FAED, is the Founder and Medical Director of the Gaudiani Clinic. Board Certified in Internal Medicine, she completed her undergraduate degree at Harvard, medical school at Boston University School of Medicine, and her internal medicine residency and chief residency at Yale. Dr. Gaudiani has been a leader in the eating disorders field for over 10 years and served as the Medical Director at the ACUTE Center for Eating Disorders prior to founding the Gaudiani Clinic which is a Denver-based outpatient medical clinic dedicated to people with eating disorders and disordered eating. The Gaudiani Clinic is a HAES (Health At Every Size)®-informed provider and embraces treating people of all shapes and sizes. The Gaudiani Clinic is licensed to practice in over 32 US states via telemedicine and offers international professional consultation and education. Dr. Gaudiani has lectured nationally and internationally, is widely published in the scientific literature as well as on blogs, is a current member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Eating Disorders and the Academy for Eating Disorders Medical Care Standards Committee, and is a former board member of iaedp. Dr. Gaudiani is one of a very small number of internal medicine physicians who is certified as an eating disorders expert. She is also a Fellow in the Academy for Eating Disorders. Dr. Gaudiani’s first book, Sick Enough: A Guide to the Medical Complications of Eating Disorders, was released by Routledge in October 2018 and is available on Amazon.
Keynote Address on Friday 20 August - And On Towards the Sea: Commitment to Weight-Inclusive Care Improves our Patients’ Lives and Our Own
Eating disorder care continues to evolve and become more sophisticated across disciplines. In this keynote talk, Dr. Gaudiani highlights the ways that our own internalised size biases and broader systems of oppression contribute to worse outcomes for all members of society, especially those with eating disorders. Combining biological considerations with social justice themes, she brings to light the erroneous associations of body shape with health that constrain and harm individuals of all shapes and sizes. Weight-inclusive approaches, by contrast, benefit providers, patients, and society at large. When we all embrace the good science and the inclusive rationale of weight-inclusive care, we begin to acknowledge our own privilege, see each patient more clearly, commit to advocacy within our own specialties, and provide vastly better treatment. This must be the way forward. Dr. Gaudiani is an internal medicine physician who specialises in eating disorders in Denver, Colorado. She was the ANZAED 2013 Guest Lecturer. Her book Sick Enough: A Guide to the Complications of Eating Disorders (Routledge, 2019) is available on Amazon.
Workshop on Saturday 21 August - Let's Talk: A Q&A Masterclass with Dr. G
In this three-hour online workshop, you’ll have the opportunity to ‘meet the expert’ Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani, (or ‘Dr. G’ as she’s known to her patients), as she takes a deeper dive into her areas of expertise in the field of eating disorders by responding directly to questions about complicated cases that conference delegates have submitted after her keynote address. As an attendee, you’ll have the opportunity to submit questions online direct to Dr. G any time following her keynote address, and throughout the workshop itself. She will expand on the tricky clinical presentations we face when working with eating disorders, with an emphasis on direct engagement with the audience through directly responding to your most challenging questions!
Dr. G welcomes all questions about the medical complications of eating disorders as well as considerations of how one communicates findings and recommendations with patients. She is also happy to field challenges to the weight-inclusive model of care she champions, whether the questioner truly doubts or whether the answer will be used to assuage concerns among community providers who are not yet bought in. She encourages questions from and about diverse individuals. The one guideline is that Dr. G asks that no weight numbers be used.
Jennifer L. Gaudiani, MD, CEDS-S, FAED, is the Founder and Medical Director of the Gaudiani Clinic. Board Certified in Internal Medicine, she completed her undergraduate degree at Harvard, medical school at Boston University School of Medicine, and her internal medicine residency and chief residency at Yale. Dr. Gaudiani has been a leader in the eating disorders field for over 10 years and served as the Medical Director at the ACUTE Center for Eating Disorders prior to founding the Gaudiani Clinic which is a Denver-based outpatient medical clinic dedicated to people with eating disorders and disordered eating. The Gaudiani Clinic is a HAES (Health At Every Size)®-informed provider and embraces treating people of all shapes and sizes. The Gaudiani Clinic is licensed to practice in over 32 US states via telemedicine and offers international professional consultation and education. Dr. Gaudiani has lectured nationally and internationally, is widely published in the scientific literature as well as on blogs, is a current member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Eating Disorders and the Academy for Eating Disorders Medical Care Standards Committee, and is a former board member of iaedp. Dr. Gaudiani is one of a very small number of internal medicine physicians who is certified as an eating disorders expert. She is also a Fellow in the Academy for Eating Disorders. Dr. Gaudiani’s first book, Sick Enough: A Guide to the Medical Complications of Eating Disorders, was released by Routledge in October 2018 and is available on Amazon.
Keynote Address on Friday 20 August - And On Towards the Sea: Commitment to Weight-Inclusive Care Improves our Patients’ Lives and Our Own
Eating disorder care continues to evolve and become more sophisticated across disciplines. In this keynote talk, Dr. Gaudiani highlights the ways that our own internalised size biases and broader systems of oppression contribute to worse outcomes for all members of society, especially those with eating disorders. Combining biological considerations with social justice themes, she brings to light the erroneous associations of body shape with health that constrain and harm individuals of all shapes and sizes. Weight-inclusive approaches, by contrast, benefit providers, patients, and society at large. When we all embrace the good science and the inclusive rationale of weight-inclusive care, we begin to acknowledge our own privilege, see each patient more clearly, commit to advocacy within our own specialties, and provide vastly better treatment. This must be the way forward. Dr. Gaudiani is an internal medicine physician who specialises in eating disorders in Denver, Colorado. She was the ANZAED 2013 Guest Lecturer. Her book Sick Enough: A Guide to the Complications of Eating Disorders (Routledge, 2019) is available on Amazon.
Workshop on Saturday 21 August - Let's Talk: A Q&A Masterclass with Dr. G
In this three-hour online workshop, you’ll have the opportunity to ‘meet the expert’ Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani, (or ‘Dr. G’ as she’s known to her patients), as she takes a deeper dive into her areas of expertise in the field of eating disorders by responding directly to questions about complicated cases that conference delegates have submitted after her keynote address. As an attendee, you’ll have the opportunity to submit questions online direct to Dr. G any time following her keynote address, and throughout the workshop itself. She will expand on the tricky clinical presentations we face when working with eating disorders, with an emphasis on direct engagement with the audience through directly responding to your most challenging questions!
Dr. G welcomes all questions about the medical complications of eating disorders as well as considerations of how one communicates findings and recommendations with patients. She is also happy to field challenges to the weight-inclusive model of care she champions, whether the questioner truly doubts or whether the answer will be used to assuage concerns among community providers who are not yet bought in. She encourages questions from and about diverse individuals. The one guideline is that Dr. G asks that no weight numbers be used.
Local Keynote Speaker - Dr. Beth Shelton
Dr. Beth Shelton is National Director of the National Eating Disorder Collaboration (NEDC), leading a team which works collaboratively with the eating disorder sector to build a safe, consistent and accessible system of care for people experiencing eating disorders and their families/supports. The NEDC synthesises research evidence, clinical expertise and lived experience in national standards and workforce initiatives to support nationally consistent approaches to prevention, early intervention and treatment. Current priorities are partnering with ANZAED in the development of a credentialing system for eating disorder professionals, and supporting early intervention in primary care. Dr. Shelton is immediate past president of the Australia and New Zealand Academy for Eating Disorders.
Dr. Shelton is also a clinician - a psychologist with a private practice in Melbourne - working with individuals experiencing eating disorders and their families/supports. For more than a decade she provided complex case consultation, training and service development in Victorian mental health services at the Victorian Centre of Excellence in Eating Disorders. Dr. Shelton developed and led an innovative community early intervention program at Monash Link Community Health Service and was clinical lead of the adult outpatient team of Monash Health’s eating disorder treatment service. Recent projects include leading the implementation of Multi-Family Therapy for Anorexia Nervosa in Victoria, and early intervention projects at the Australian Ballet School and the Victorian College of the Arts, UniMelb.
Dr. Shelton has regularly presented papers, plenary presentations and workshops. Body Image treatment is an ongoing focus for this work, as is service development, particularly early intervention initiatives. She has a distinguished professional history in contemporary dance and is interested in the role of movement and embodied experience in evidence-based interventions for disordered eating and body image problems.
Keynote Address on Friday 20 August - If the System Could Talk: A Brief Autobiography of the Eating Disorders Field in Australia. Past, Present, and Future
The eating disorders field in Australia has advanced at a rapid pace over the past two decades. Dr Beth Shelton, the National Director of the National Eating Disorders Collaboration (NEDC) has been an integral part of this evolution, in leadership, clinical, and community roles. Dr Shelton will consider how far the field has come towards providing an equitable and effective response to the risk and occurrence of eating disorders. She will gather and synthesize perspectives from sector leaders, and consider various approaches to system building. She will speak to key points of progress, and articulate ongoing strategic and systemic challenges. Dr Shelton will bring together useful guiding principles, standards and models of action to help map a path for growth to come. She will outline what constructive system building in the next ten years might look like, for the system of care as a whole, and for individuals within it. This keynote will create a snapshot of where we are in responding to the human predicament of eating disorders, and have attendees walk away with ideas about steps they can take to help advance the field in meaningful, tangible ways.
Dr. Beth Shelton is National Director of the National Eating Disorder Collaboration (NEDC), leading a team which works collaboratively with the eating disorder sector to build a safe, consistent and accessible system of care for people experiencing eating disorders and their families/supports. The NEDC synthesises research evidence, clinical expertise and lived experience in national standards and workforce initiatives to support nationally consistent approaches to prevention, early intervention and treatment. Current priorities are partnering with ANZAED in the development of a credentialing system for eating disorder professionals, and supporting early intervention in primary care. Dr. Shelton is immediate past president of the Australia and New Zealand Academy for Eating Disorders.
Dr. Shelton is also a clinician - a psychologist with a private practice in Melbourne - working with individuals experiencing eating disorders and their families/supports. For more than a decade she provided complex case consultation, training and service development in Victorian mental health services at the Victorian Centre of Excellence in Eating Disorders. Dr. Shelton developed and led an innovative community early intervention program at Monash Link Community Health Service and was clinical lead of the adult outpatient team of Monash Health’s eating disorder treatment service. Recent projects include leading the implementation of Multi-Family Therapy for Anorexia Nervosa in Victoria, and early intervention projects at the Australian Ballet School and the Victorian College of the Arts, UniMelb.
Dr. Shelton has regularly presented papers, plenary presentations and workshops. Body Image treatment is an ongoing focus for this work, as is service development, particularly early intervention initiatives. She has a distinguished professional history in contemporary dance and is interested in the role of movement and embodied experience in evidence-based interventions for disordered eating and body image problems.
Keynote Address on Friday 20 August - If the System Could Talk: A Brief Autobiography of the Eating Disorders Field in Australia. Past, Present, and Future
The eating disorders field in Australia has advanced at a rapid pace over the past two decades. Dr Beth Shelton, the National Director of the National Eating Disorders Collaboration (NEDC) has been an integral part of this evolution, in leadership, clinical, and community roles. Dr Shelton will consider how far the field has come towards providing an equitable and effective response to the risk and occurrence of eating disorders. She will gather and synthesize perspectives from sector leaders, and consider various approaches to system building. She will speak to key points of progress, and articulate ongoing strategic and systemic challenges. Dr Shelton will bring together useful guiding principles, standards and models of action to help map a path for growth to come. She will outline what constructive system building in the next ten years might look like, for the system of care as a whole, and for individuals within it. This keynote will create a snapshot of where we are in responding to the human predicament of eating disorders, and have attendees walk away with ideas about steps they can take to help advance the field in meaningful, tangible ways.