Last year's Seminar, which was held as part of Pituitary Awareness Week, was a great success.  A full day included presentations from:

• Professor David Torpy, Endocrinologist, who gave a very informative and descriptive overview of the pituitary gland and information on some medications currently being researched. 

• Dr Santoreneos, Neurosurgeon, who presented some graphic but very interesting slides of procedures for surgery on pituitary tumours.  One member, following Dr Santoreneos' talk, was explaining that he had already decided he would never undergo any further surgery on his tumour but after the neurosurgeon's talk changed his mind, having gained confidence in the procedure during the presentation. 

• Dr Elaine Tham, a Paediatric Endocrinologist who gave an excellent presentation on childhood endocrine disorders and she made a real connection with several mothers at the seminar who all have young children with pituitary disorders.   

• Jenny Nairn, Endocrine Nurse, who put quite a bit of humour into her presentation but the underlying and serious theme of continual medical overview of transition from childhood to adulthood was the main focus of her talk.  Jenny wanted to emphasize particularly to younger patients the importance of continuing with medication and gave some good examples of what happens - slowly - if medication is not maintained.  Jenny also gave information on breakdowns due to low cortisol and gave very clear and informative details on how patients were to recognise signals and take precautions.

• Lynne Singlewood, Naturopath, who addressed the group on basic and sensible diet, and vitamins.  She had done some extensive research on endocrine disorders and diet. 

• Loretta Schar, Carer, who spoke of her own experience as a carer for her husband and the impact that it has had on the whole family over the years:  

Everyone stayed to mingle after the seminar and almost everyone came up to thank us for putting on such an informative day.  Two carers in particular came up to me and quite emotionally thanked me personally as they felt that the issues of carers were also addressed.  Many of those present had not attended such a seminar before and were going home with much more information, but most importantly many had made connections with others in similar situations and people were exchanging names and contact details.  Many of the young mothers went away relieved to know they weren't alone.