I only ‘met’ Mark Stipic “The WorkCover Guy” quite recently and I am still to meet him close up in the real world. We were apparently both present at the December 2015 ISCRR Forum in Melbourne, but I didn’t know about him then.

Earlier this year Mark and I connected on Twitter and two weeks ago he interviewed me for a Podcast for his RTW Nation Series. His interview with me is the eighth he has done. In the interview I was able to explain some of the background to my ‘activism’ on Social Media, how I have applied hazard management principles learnt in my training as an occupational physician to risks from compensation systems, as well as explain the approach I take to managing cases referred by general practitioners, so-called ‘complex cases’ as outlined in my previous blog article ‘Towards Simplicity – Complex Case Management by Doctors’.

In addition, I had the opportunity to put out there some new concepts such as ‘Adverse Event Reporting’ by doctors in compensation systems and even answering the ‘magic wand’ question i.e. with a magic wand what would you change about the current system. You can be the judge of whether it is of value by listening to the podcast. Here is a link:

RTW Nation Podcast Episode 8 – Peter Sharman about Complex Case Management

What is different about Mark’s approach is that he is trying to make workers compensation subjects engaging and interesting. He has done multiple (100, I understand) video clips to answer commonly asked questions in his field.

Social Media provides a powerful tool for engagement and discussion between practitioners and other stakeholders who are geographically separated and might not otherwise interact. New ideas can follow this interaction providing impetus for positive change, based on the evidence and experience in the real world.

Keep up the good work Mark.