Dr David McCutcheon

Dr David McCutcheon

Emergency Physician, Royal Perth Hospital and Albany Health Campus

Research Overview

Dr McCutcheon's area of research is looking at illicit drugs in the emergency department (ED). His study, the Western Australian Illicit Substance Evaluation (WISE), looked at patients presenting to Royal Perth Hospital ED with suspected illicit drug toxicity and checked blood samples for traditional and new illicit drugs using specialised analysis at ChemCentre WA.

The drugs detected were compared to the clinical effects for the patient, and with what they thought they’d taken. Dr McCutcheon will learn a lot about the illicit drugs causing harm in our community, and the role of new drugs called novel psychoactive substances (NPS) which we know little about. This study design has now been replicated nationwide as the Emerging Drugs Network of Australia (EDNA).