From the Chancellery
Professor Robyn McDermott
Pro Vice Chancellor for the Division of Health Sciences
I'd
like to take this opportunity to introduce myself as the newest member of
the senior management group at UniSA, to share some first impressions of
UniSA, from the point of view of a 'new chum', and to set out my early views
on some of the challenges and opportunities facing the Division of Health
Sciences.
I arrived in Adelaide from north Queensland on August 2, apparently in the middle of the coldest SA winter in many years. Having spent the last nine years in the tropics, the last six weeks in Adelaide has been a thermal challenge.
More than compensating for this, however, has been the warm welcome from staff and other colleagues in Adelaide, patience with my questions and great willingness to help and collaborate in existing and potential projects. My professional background is in medicine and public health, which may seem strange given that UniSA has neither a medical school or a formal public health program. However, what I have discovered is that many of the teaching and research programs and collaborations here, while not labelled as such, have a strong preventive focus and take a population perspective.
I worked for 20 years as a primary care doctor and later as a health service manager in various rural and remote parts of Australia, and also in China, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand. Since 1987 I have been involved in research in chronic disease epidemiology in Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, and more recently worked with communities and health services to take strong measures to improve primary care service delivery in remote areas, and making links with better health outcomes, particularly for people with diabetes. After a mid-career break learning about public health at Harvard University, I returned to Australia in 1993 to a research fellowship at the Menzies School of Health Research in the NT. In 1995 I moved to Cairns to set up epidemiology services for the Queensland Health Department in the wilds of north Queensland, and during that time also set up collaborations with Indigenous health services in Cape York and the Torres Strait. In 2001, I joined James Cook University as Professor of Public Health Medicine and was able to continue working with industry and communities on NHMRC-funded projects. These projects and others were influential in changing health policy and increasing resources for population-based chronic disease prevention and a reorientation of the health service model. Two NHMRC projects are ongoing and managed by two star Indigenous researchers.
For two years to May 2004, I was also president of the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine, and undertook numerous consultancies and committee work for various organisations, including AusAID, WHO, Department of Health and Aging and the NT DHCS.
I was attracted to UniSA by not the weather, but its reputation as being innovative, well linked to community and industry, and very well managed. This reputation is well placed as I have discovered and as the excellent outcome of the recent AUQA review shows. After a few short weeks I am feeling energised and optimistic that the Health Sciences Division, and the university generally, is well placed to adapt and grow in today's changing economic and corporate environment. Ongoing challenges will be to maintain a customer focus and improve services and teaching support for students. In the medium term we hope to develop areas of research strength, particularly in 'healthy lifestyles', including healthy ageing, nutrition and exercise, quality use of medicines and chronic disease prevention in the community.