Rate My Professor Katie McGill

Dr Katie McGill is a Conjoint Lecturer in the School of Medicine and Public Health, College of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing, at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She holds a Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology from Macquarie University. A clinical psychologist with more than 20 years of experience in suicide prevention and mental health promotion, McGill occupies dual roles as Suicide Prevention Research Manager with the Hunter New England Health MH-READ (Mental Health Research, Evaluation, Analysis and Dissemination) unit and Suicide Prevention Coordinator (Clinical Lead)-Newcastle for the Lifespan project, administered locally by the Hunter Institute of Mental Health. Her extensive career history includes Senior Clinical Psychologist in the Towards Zero Suicides Team at Hunter New England Local Health District since July 2020, Program Manager for the Families, Workplaces and Targeted Preventions team at the Hunter Institute of Mental Health from 2008 to 2014, coordinator of the Mental Health and GP Partnerships Program for Hunter New England Mental Health Service from 2006 to 2008, and Research and Clinical Psychologist at Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) with Hunter New England Mental Health from 2003 to 2007.

McGill's academic interests center on suicide prevention research, encompassing treatment and intervention trials, epidemiological and public health data analysis, assessment and service evaluations, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and implementation science. She works closely with Professor Greg Carter on initiatives such as investigating the efficacy of the Newcastle Way Back Support Service, evaluating the NSW Accredited Persons program, and conducting systematic reviews on suicide risk assessment instruments and clinician judgements. Select key publications are "Global prevalence of psychosocial assessment following hospital-treated self-harm: systematic review and meta-analysis" (Witt K et al., 2024, BJPsych Open), "Effectiveness of Brief Contact Interventions for Bereavement: A Systematic Review" (McGill K et al., 2024, Omega-Journal of Death and Dying), "A Randomized Controlled Trial of an SMS-Based Brief Contact Intervention for People Bereaved by Suicide" (McGill K et al., 2025, Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior), "Hospital-treated deliberate self-poisoning patients: Drug-induced delirium and clinical outcomes" (Gale L et al., 2022, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry), and "Predicting suicidal behaviours using clinical instruments: systematic review and meta-analysis of positive predictive values for risk scales" (McGill K et al., 2018, The British Journal of Psychiatry). She has supervised professional doctorates and master's theses on family psychoeducation for depressive disorders and clinicians' attitudes towards caring for individuals with depression. Among her honors is a PhD scholarship from Suicide Prevention Australia and Regional Australia Bank.