You Are Not Old: A Conversation with Professor Fiona Stanley

[Music] Welcome to the Gift of Age. I am thrilled today to be in the company of Professor Fiona Stain. Fiona Stain, thank you for welcoming me into your beautiful home and for making the time and sharing with our audience some of your remarkable history, career and wisdom, wisdom for life. This is going to be a pleasure. I am going to just give you a little bit of background. It could take me always to get her Fiona's whole history, but just a basic introduction. Fiona is one of Australia's most influential public health pioneers and a life-low champion for children, for families, for health and for social equity. She's a former Australian of the year. Fiona founded the Kids Institute, the Tinophone Children's Institute, and it spent decades reshaping our understanding of early life, prevention and the social forces that shape health across and lifetime. Her work has changed national policy and global thinking, while her voice remains a powerful call for justice, compassion and community need to change. I'm not finished, Fiona. Fiona, it's an absolute honor to have you on the Gift of Age. Fiona has been described in much of the literature as Australia's own living treasure. For our international audience here in Australia, and especially in Western Australia, there is almost no one who doesn't know the name Fiona Stanley. It's as ubiquitous as Reggie might. It's not a "cottos no beach". For those of you don't know, "cottos no", it's like Bondi. I'm in a beautiful home in Fremantel. I've had the privilege of being here before with her fabulous friends and some of the extended family. Fiona doesn't like any of the fuss and all the detail of her remarkable life's work, but truly an assupersia. I'm going to give you a chance to talk about it. I promise. Fiona's spoken lovingly in previous interviews about your magical childhood, about growing up in a scientific family. What were your early experiences that shaped your sense of purpose and your life's work? Well, I feel very raccorded because we didn't sit knee, south of Sydney, and there's a beautiful coastline there. There was a train that went from La Peruz, which is an Aboriginal settlement on Botany Bay, all the way to Bondi. The Bondi train was called. It went past the hospital with my father, was working, he was a virologist, and he was working on chronology vaccine. If you went through the hospital and you saw people around Ion Langs, you saw people with all the infectious diseases. I mean, so in a very early age, I knew that what my father's doing was preventing disease and preventing horrendous situation. So there was all that. But I think the most important part of my childhood actually was also much the exposure to science. I can say that because it was there all the time. So there it was, but was the amazing environment. We were brought up in the bush, like Elder Rada, to his older, we were just allowed to go and make cubbies and do stuff and go down the beach and walk a little gong walk with the Aboriginal kids and the forest and it wasn't just magic. I thought we'd have now, but in those days we called the tram to schools and open tram. You know, he'd been actually four out inside if you wanted to. When I was four, I was on the tram with my brother, age six. There was no worry about what happened. We had the freedom of infectious diseases. I was born and went down the firing range, then Long Bay jail, for long term prisoners, and then the rifle range, and then we got off at Matriot, go to out of school, which was called the soldiers settlement infant school. It was just a magical childhood really. We went sailing in Sydney Harbour because my dad built a boat. We went out through the heads, up at the pit water again, hardly developed. And for two weeks when anybody, we just catch fish, we take fresh water and fresh vegetables and that was our holiday. So we didn't have any money. My father's still a student doing his doctorate when he was working on polyvaxine. But what richness? So Matriot was very. Was real. Was real. how that creativity. My mother was a classic scholar. She had to give up teaching when she had us. And my father's just read it, so I just went, "My mother's class of scholar, very creative, puppet shows, no television. We get a radio. We listen to the ABC Argonauts, which was a Jordan's programme." So that was it. Everything else we made. So it was pretty exciting. And then when I was ten months, I was recruited to Western Strait, it helps out the medical school, which was being set up in 1956. I'm very old. So. You're amazing. That was a quite a change. We lived in a much more, we lived in a suburb, we went to school in a private school. I mean, it was very different than the childhood that I'd come from. And then you went on to study medicine, you know, the UWA in its early days. There couldn't have been too many women in the class. There were six of those, quite bad women. In that class, about 80 or something. I've never had any misogyny that I can remember, and certainly no sexual harassment. It's interesting. My kids probably think I'm thick-skinned. I didn't know what misogyny was there, but we just wanted to get through. And we had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun. We did outrageous things. I have to say that I'm a frustrated therespian, I think. So any opportunity to be a bit crazy was there. And it was an automatic school. We did crazy things. We had skits. We had these stupid things. We did a university to raise money. We did terrible things, which wouldn't be now, we probably be naughty. We would be probably jailed, I think. But it was fun. It wasn't malicious. There was no racism that I can remember, except when I started going out to the Aboriginal community. Yeah, so now I'm going to hear a little bit about that. From early in your career, you've worked in the Aboriginal communities, across West Australia and across the country. And you've continued tinesly towards closing the gap. In health, there are still many gaps. I know that you've been the gaps going to exist. And you'd be both now with the United Nations and presenting the Australian children's data. How did this year's reshape your own? Your understanding of health? It's been shaped me completely. In three major ways. In three major epochs. The first epoch was as a second year medical student. I went up as an unqualified nursing aid. All medical students should be in this room. Unqualified nursing aid up to Port Headland. In those days, there were only about 800 people living up in Port Headland. I don't believe it now. And so we did the flying doctor round every Thursday. I had to do all the nursing things in the hospital. There was a native hospital, would you believe it? Anyway. Sounds like my back was in the hospital. You would be in the hospital. I would believe it. So we did the flying doctor round. I make that into it. All these Aboriginal communities I've never seen a remote community before. Not with Chaffering. With Chaffering. To see the conditions in which people lived. But this was an incredible generosity and friendship that developed them. So that was the first exposure. And it was very, very important for me. The next was when I graduated as the own doctor. I was working. You had to do two years in the hospital. It's all entered the PDA. I was working in May. I had all of us built in the PDA to the hospital. But I joined this organisation called the Aboriginal Advancement Council. This is before we had Aboriginal Medical Services in Australia. And this was 1970. And so the Aboriginal Advancement Council was in East Perth where a lot of the Aboriginal people used to live and the homeless people in the PDA. And we went clinics there. But I actually joined a group. Sounds crazy. The new year Aboriginal fellowship. And it was a group of Aboriginal and white people working together to try and improve our comes from Aboriginal people. And so I went with a group of white doctors and visited every single mission, camp and reserve in Western Australia for the Eastern Gulf Fields right up to Kamaruma. It was unbelievable. I did two major trips. And we wrote reports about it. And in those days there were missions and their work, you know, reserved. It was still a little stolen gem. It was a big, writ large. This is now 1770. 1971. We did our big two trips. We wrote these reports. That group of people set up the Aboriginal Medical Service and the Aboriginal Legal Service. So I was right into that. I was joined the Black Power Movement. Everything was fine. Everything black was good. It was even fine. But it's just another nuanced understanding I had now. I didn't really understand the stolen gem. It wasn't out there yet. Do you want to explain for people that are not Australian? Yes. The stolen generations was the forced removal of half-cast children from all over Australia to take out their Aboriginality. So it was a genocidal activity. So these were children who were taken away from parents in a forced-of-country and put into institutions to make them white. And the whole feeling was that this was in the 1930s, they were all the protector of Aboriginal. They said at a conference in Adelaide, if we do this, all of the full Aboriginal old Aboriginal people would die out. They would die out. And all the people that we take away in two or three generations, you will never know there had been Aboriginal people in Australia. That was the policy. So that was what caused our generation to be. It said the third iteration, the third epoch of why I guess I ended up so heavily involved in the social justice issue. It's far bigger than health. Was that I was looking after these children who would come into the pediatric hospital from these places. We visited 15% dehydration, severe respiratory illness. They looked like third world kids, the worst world kids. We performed medical miracles on their children. I can remember the front page of the West to stay in there before and after. And then we put them straight back in the community without changing any of the social-- With anything to tell you. I thought, got to be a gift from where I'm doing medicine or I'm out of here. I gave up pediatric training. And I fled to the UK, got terribly upset about the racism in Australia, started to front out then about the stolen jail. I could not believe that Australia had this terrible history. So I fled. Is it a little remarkable? Aren't you whole schooling? It still happens today. When Gossam once called school, we were in the university. It doesn't know that. It's the science. The people didn't want to know. It was written out of the archives. It was written out of everything. That's why it had to be an oral piece of treatment. Bring it all back. So then I discovered public health. And goodness. I thought, this is it. So I got to the London School of Hageria, Tropical Medicine in the UK. But absolute fluke. I've given up pediatric training. And a nurse made the lancet for those interested in the career of social medicine. I thought that's all so weird. And that was it. Like turned on no problem. That was-- and I did my training there. I did a big thesis on labors like babies. Went to the States for a year, got into the health service. So I was interested in all the perinatal outcomes, the pregnancy, maternal and child health. You know, all of the things which affect the children and young people, I'd always that works out. And then came back to a school. I was a Swiss student. It lies to huge, great service to those networks. I mean, what is the training? The network. It's so powerful. If I can dive straight into that amazing research into photogasage, that I think most people here know that you are very smart. But I think globally, maybe people aren't even aware. Showing the prevention of neural tube defects. Yeah, what did you get to that age? One of the things, when I came back to Western Australia, was 1976, 1977. And it was the era of phydenomide. People who know about phydenomide, I think. It's just a drug and pregnancy, which caused severe defect, salinity effects. And it was easy to pick that up because it was so rare. Those defects were so rare. And the other thing was agent orange, which had been blasted all across the Vietnam. So everyone was worried about birth defects. So we set up the first birth defects register in Australia. And that was to take the-- to find out what the causes of birth defects could be to prevent them. We knew about Rubella. And we didn't know anything about herself. There weren't-- we don't know about the causes of birth defects. We still haven't at this stage diagnosed for the lab cause syndrome. But so I thought, what's the most important question we needed to address? And there was this really interesting pattern in spine-abifitative and related defects. It's a horrible defect. You're either born without a brain when you die. Or you have a legion up your spine. And everything below it is paralyzed. It's a terrible defect. Surrendous-- so not what you might call the best kind of prevention in my view. So it was interesting because these new chip defects were different in different populations. And they went up and down over time. So it's got to be something in the environment. So we decided to look at the terminal diet. That was so different in these different populations. And we weren't the only group looking at this. But we're the only group to find out the maternal diet. High and folly was protective. And Calvado had her pet on this. She then, with me, developed the first intervention program in Western Spain in the world to prevent new chip defects by telling mother to eat more folly rich foods before they got pregnant. Because the new York tube closes in the first eight weeks. That's right. They've got to get in before pregnant. But fantastic. It is nice. It's been a global change. But the reason why Decana Social Justice is you is because when we did the health education program, it didn't help Aboriginal women, unmarried women, poor women, smokers, unplanned pregnancy. So then for me, it became a social justice issue. You folly it into the flower. And you know, they fought us. And we did this not just nationally. We've got an international group to put folly it in the flower. And it's been a battle. But we got it on Australia. We got it on. You can put a cancer kit there, or you could put a low birth rate baby there. And of course, it gets all the action. But all the things where you achieve such outcomes to reduce deaths. And it was sort of-- it's an honor bit, which is what you want. What's what we want? Exactly. Wow. What an incredible and creative way. Yeah, but that was a great story, I have to say. And it's been when you look at all of the data-- because we bought the best data. There was the other thing I knew when I came back from the scene was the best data on everything related to children, young people, and families that I put. And Western Australia's population of our tree are a lot. We've got the best data, and it's all linked. So we could watch the data and say, oh, it's going down. Isn't it? I mean, it's still being considerable. You mentioned before we started the podcast that you've just celebrated. They just celebrated together with you 35 years since you found it, Tennis Island, Kid's Institute. What was that? You're right. You got celebration. You're not-- Oh, it's not a great way. It's great. But it's interesting how we set up the institute, which was in the late '80s. I realized that epidemiology, but it's not. It wasn't going to solve the causal pathways. Could my whole interest, these causal pathways, interdisease, if you can find out what's causing the problem, you can prevent it. Rather than just say, oh, we'll treat the diabetes. We'll treat the rheumatic heart disease. What do you treat suicide? Exactly. So important that we do prevention. Anyway, so I realized that epidemiology was very powerful, but it's not. But it's so. So I thought we could have set up an institute that's got genetics and molecular stuff and good, really clinical research as well as our population and social data. And that's what we did. It's a world's class. Yeah. We're very unsure to have all of that in one institute. Most of the other medical research institutes focus on basic signs, or clinical signs. They don't have everything. And they don't try and talk to each other. What we were trying to do was talk to each other. We had genetic research. We had all of this stuff. And then it was before the human genome came on. Now you've got it all. Now we've got it all. And what's amazing is that you ensured that you passed on the-- there was succession with case in the institute. You're really? Oh, yes. You know, I mean, the good and the great of a team. You need to acknowledge. Well, the secret of success, the best leadership you can give is to surround yourself with the brist people that you can possibly recruit and then enable them-- really enable them to succeed. And that's the most important characteristic of a leader in science anyway, is generosity. I have to say that. That is just a key. That's a key-- I don't need to be first author on the paper or first. And because you get all these people who are not sick of science, they're around you and they're criticizing you. And that means you get the best-- Where is the best of everything? You get the best use of the data. You get the best research done. It's a really important thing. So I'm telling you the story about the Aboriginal leadership in the Institute, because that's one of our best success stories. When we set up the Institute late '80s, I went to the Aboriginal community. We knew very well. We knew me. And I said, look, we're not a service provider. We are a research organization. What do you want us to be for you? And when are they said? We want you to be our mother. Now, what is a mother's group? A mother gives all of the knowledge, the love, the capacity, the power, the fountains to children so they can cope in a really tough world out there and succeed. So we do. And so we have grown this incredible group of Aboriginal research scholars who are all around Australia. They're all prefaces. They're all leading research groups and that changed my life in terms of understanding about how to do research really well in a social area. Because what Aboriginal people taught me was-- I taught them how to get grants and gave them an able event to get on. They taught me how to do really good community participation action research, which is about how you involve community-- It's getting worse. --with each driven. And so it changed my life. And also what changed is my understanding of their commitment and their absolute association with country, with land. It's very different from anything that I've absolutely. And so they don't have words in their language for help. It's all about living on country and being on country. Being born on country and dying on country. Country, if I look after country, she will look after me. And the interpenerative-- --sit of fanning culture. Think about that. Think about that planet. Before you look after Mother Earth, she looks at herself. What have we done? The white colonial model has exploited not only the Aboriginal people of the strait of almost every other intelligence group in the world, but also what have they done to the environment. And so I hope it's not too late for us to think about how we should be looking after Mother Earth, because that Aboriginal way of doing things, even in the services we provide, for moms and kids and everything, if you've had an Aboriginal approach, look at the devastating effects We've had a private conversation. advertising essential welfare services, making money out of them. How crazy is that? If we have the community based close to the people that you want to serve, involving the people that you're serving in the service provision, we're remarkable. So you can understand how ungrateful to be a group of people for educating me about these issues. Given so much that you've laid so much to be a real two-way learning trust. A real trust, a real trust, a real trust. Amazing, amazing. We could talk all down, get a shit in little bit to go into some of the questions on you personally, because you are besides what you have done and the legacy you have created and accomplished in health, in Aboriginal communities, in research, mentoring, leadership, next generation, give us some of the background of how are you used to look at the gift of age? Vyre too, passionate, living meaningfully, what are the ways in which you think you have maintained such a robust energy and life force at this age? I know you are beyond 60. She's in going back. Because that's what I'm at next year. But no, I'm very lucky because I thought I was very energetic, I'm a lot of energy and I have always had a lot of energy, always. And I particularly have a lot of energy when I'm becoming passionate about something. I am going to ask you a little bit about your passion, what gives you your focus and you really are absolutely remarkable at any age. Well, I'm 18 next year, so I'm a little older than you and I feel very good about that. But I feel very lucky. So that's why when I've discovered energy and public health and all of those things, it's sort of started a little motor. I was just going to go. And I loved doing things where I felt it was going to make a difference. So even if I had to write a grant and I had to stab all night to do it, I did. Because this is so important to get the funding for this particular project. So we could try and hold up more Aboriginal students. You know, although I see that really, really, it was somehow I got fed by that. I didn't get tired by that. I enjoyed giving talks after a while when I got used to it. I made some terrible mistakes early on on television and things, but then it got a bit better. So that I, when I was giving talks to people, often I just thought the whole audience was giving you energy. The whole audience with me. So I just, I would keep going. I just could do that. But I think the other thing that I had two daughters and the difficult thing was your work and then your home for them. What women on the whole leave out is themselves. So Tommy, how you take care of yourself? What I started to do then was I've always done yoga. My mother taught yoga and I've always done yoga. And I might go into yoga class as actually because it means it keeps me going. But I have a little routine that I can do in the morning days, we do not do anything. But I always been passionate swimmer. And I love that. And I love that. And Bush Walker. We've always done hiking and Bush walking. You know, since my husband and I got together in the 1970s, we were in Europe and we just been the outs and everything. So that's been part of my helping. But when I had the kids and when I was working so hard, I neglected that. Exactly. So I've had to get back into that. But at the institute, when I was directly in the institute, and I had a couple of people in the institute, you also swim. So we leave at 12 o'clock. It doesn't want to drive down to the talent stadium where the pool was. Swim a kilometer and then head a shanker back. This is why I didn't wear makeup. Because I couldn't pull. Not at all. I just couldn't cry as well. But out of my PA would sometimes say to me, "Oh, why did you go for a blood and swim?" Obviously I was getting a bit mad. It's simply one of me to go with the exercise. Always, always gives me a heart. Yes. So what do you do when I go? I go. Hi. Do you swim a few times a week? I swim every morning. Every morning. Every morning. Ocean sometimes. Always ocean. Well, in the winter, I go to the pool. Of course. Of course. But we have to do in the squad a couple of years ago, at the oldest in the squad, I think, which is wonderful and these were pushed me to do this more. But I don't. It doesn't take long once I'm in the ocean and getting to that rhythm where I'm feeling it's more than exercise for me. I think there's something spiritual about being in the water and there's something spiritual about being in the bush. So I go on a major bush walk every weekend with my friend, the one who did all the O'Cythe Smear research in every football play for me. This is fantastic. And we've gone to the World Track, which is a famous just for your overseas list as a famous track, which is athlete. Goes on for miles. A mile. A mile. You've been struggling. You don't do the whole thing every week. You've been able to do it every week and so you come back from that feeling to it. Excellerated. So I am fit and I think it's really, really important that I am a makes it. The other thing is I've always been an aborida. And you know, why it was like you had to show that you were well educated. You know, that's the thing. Being at this film and we've been working for the easiest scientists you've been managing the world. Rather than sort of beating the best male wearing best clothes for me, it was the book. And theatre. And theatre, it was. You've taken the big show that I was really utilised. Well, the woman. I mean, precious. But you do love this film. But I love this. You've taken us along to some of the wonderful shows. And they've come to watch you for me. You think? A feminist plane. Yes, I'm with her. I'm with her. There was absolutely. It was fantastic. It was. So I think that's kept my brain very active. And I have to say that I do love writing and you know, still writing things about juvenile justice, about climate change and children's health. All those things which are really important. I write big pieces of big people. I write chapters. We've written a couple of books now writing another book about that. How is that? Aboriginal, Scotland. Beautiful book. So I think there is a, it is, I do not feel well rounded. It's that it's, you know, that I've got the exercise which I love. I've got the nature. I've got reading. I've got going. And social. Social leave. I've got a lot of keepers. You know, my husband died 10 years ago. I had two incredible daughters who somehow survived my dreadful motherhood. I'm sure not. I'm sure not. Anyway, and they are just ones. A social worker works. She went with three diners and after but she's in the social worker. In the areas which I would, you know, I love to be working. And my second daughter is doing first contact test. So she's doing indigenous. She's a deaf, decolonizing the archives. Which is fantastic. And the people that I have is my friends. I just so loving. And a lot of my Aboriginal mates. I think that's a very important part of aging. So if you don't have a partner. At social connections. I'm quite likely living by myself. So I can have a poorly-leigh when I want to. And the social connections are very important. And I know that older people, you know, if you don't, I've got hearing aids. If you don't, if you can't communicate, you could become very lonely. It's really important that you don't. And I think that's an important part. That's why if I'm going into Bush, I'm going with somebody. If I'm going to sleep or off into the squad. Or, you know, there's that. There's that just, it's fun. It makes things more fun. Here, so I think that's there my secrets. Not secrets anymore. You know what? Everyone's saying the same thing. And also you eat. Well, you know, I eat pretty well. I don't. I'm not a great cook. And one of these women who just think, if I. You're rather just throwing out. The walking show on television. No. You would know, no, no, no, no, no, what's it then? I would not be able to watch it. I would say, no, not for you. Not for you. Not for you. All of you know, we're the sun, put it cooking. And I think, oh, I'm boring, you know. There's so much of my childhood in here. But you have to eat well. You do have to eat well as an older person. You know, it has to say everybody's saying the same things. But you've got to do it. And you've got to work hard around as we get older. And I want to come back to you, spoke about kind of change. You've described these issues as wicked problems, particularly your focus on inequality, kind of change in child medical health. What are your thoughts on these? Well, as you get older, you get wider. And I used to focus on maternal and child health and the things in the family and the things in the close environments that were important for prevention and so on. But I think it only you realize that, in fact, the these problems, these wicked problems, you say, are massive. All outcomes of the way we live. And the way we live is driven by the extreme catalyst to gender. You move Margaret thatger. There's no such thing as society. There are only individuals get wealthy and there'll be the typical down effect. She was so wrong. And what she did was to say in most important way you could evaluate a society is its GDP. Well, the GDP is a dreadful measure of society. It measures all the horrible things we sell like arms and guns and cigarettes and alcohol, as well as other things we sell. doesn't measure any of the things that make a society a good society. So what does it do? It pushes you to have colluding the atmosphere and get causing climate change and environmental degradation. It pushes you to not be nice to people because you are going to end the way of me so it's that kind of environment in which children are living. And there that's why they've got into problems and that's why we've got climate change. It's about cause of something. It is a cause. It's an effect. It's an effect of this extreme gender. What's so exciting is that people are now saying we must not do this anymore. There's a huge OECD global programme now beyond duty, which is looking at how you might need the well-being instead of the financial bottom line. So that's arm-tart of that. I'm very excited. I am a sort of medical epidemiologist getting into all these social economic stuff because that's the way we're going to solve this. I can work on to the cows come home and cause vaccines are great and that's the most important thing to do. Okay, so I had the wonderful opportunity to talk with Fiona, a professor of Fiona Stanley in her home a little while earlier, but as tech would have it, I had a little glitch and didn't get the most important question answered. So Fiona, I'm going to end this conversation with the most beautiful advice for older people who are feeling tired, a lack of relevance. What is your message? Well, you're not old. That's the most important message. Fiona, it's been an absolute treat speaking with you and hearing your story and sharing some inspiration on enjoying these years and giving back in such a profound way. And at the same time, enjoying your swimming, your bush walks together with your contribution. Fiona, have a wonderful, wonderful evening and thank you. [MUSIC]