Dr Karen Hitchcock is a general physician whose clinical work has focused on pain, fatigue, medically unexplained symptoms and obesity. She holds a PhD in English and writes regular essays for The Monthly. She is the author of the Quarterly Essay Dear Life and the story collection Little White Slips, which won the Steele Rudd award in the 2010 Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards. Hitchcock was one of the first authorised prescribers of medicinal cannabis in Australia.