General News
3 July, 2023
Local appointed to health board
Maryborough’s Dr Lowen Clarke has been appointed acting chair of the Department of Health’s Human Research Ethics Committee after nine years of membership. Dr Clarke, who holds a Doctorate in Therapeutic Arts Practice and has earned degrees in...
Maryborough’s Dr Lowen Clarke has been appointed acting chair of the Department of Health’s Human Research Ethics Committee after nine years of membership.
Dr Clarke, who holds a Doctorate in Therapeutic Arts Practice and has earned degrees in classics, divinity, writing and organisational dynamics, was recently nominated to be acting chair by fellow committee members.
The committee serves to consider the ethical implications of research proposals submitted to it and provides advice on matters of an ethical nature.
Dr Clarke said he was honoured to become the committee’s acting chair.
“When I saw an advertisement for the committee at the time I joined it made sense for me to apply given the areas I’d studied,” he said.
“Becoming acting chair is really good, it’s something I wanted to do and I was fortunate to be nominated by the other committee members.
“I think it’s a wonderful honour for me personally for all the work I’ve been doing over the years and I think it’s really good for this town as well that somebody from Maryborough has achieved this.
“It’s a privilege to be able to work with this committee and the Department of Health as well.”
The committee comprises 17 members from culturally diverse backgrounds, with membership from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community, researchers, laypeople, those with a pastoral background, philosophers and solicitors, among others.
Dr Clarke said the diversity of the board was one of its strengths.
“The board has a great diversity about it and we’re now looking for diversity in research and I’m very lucky because my background is in arts-based research, I understand theology and organisational dynamics which are not the normal areas so that is of some use,” he said.
“There’s lots and lots of health projects that both the Department of Health and Department of Families, Fairness and Housing have and we approve the ethics of those projects.
“The major thing I tend to look at is whether that document speaks to the people it’s written for — is it written clearly so someone could read the document and understand it?”
Dr Clarke has worked for a number of years in the space of trauma research, creating the Empowerment Script, a writing style designed to have a calming effect on those impacted by trauma.