Graduations

Graduation address given by Professor Judith A Whitworth

Professor Judith A Whitworth gave the following occasional address at the University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine graduation ceremony held on 25 May 2000.

Professor Judith Whitworth is Director of the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University in Canberra. She is a graduate of the University of Melbourne (MBBS 1967, MD 1974, PhD 1978, DSc 1992). She trained as a renal physician in Melbourne, Adelaide, Paris and London, and has subsequently held a Chair of Medicine at the University of New South Wales, at St George Hospital, and been Chairman of the Medical Research Committee of the NHMRC.

Graduation address

Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, Deans, Directors, distinguished guests, Faculty, graduates, ladies and gentlemen.

First and most importantly, congratulations to all the new graduates whose intellect and endeavour have combined with support from family and friends to make today possible, a day which represents one of the most important milestones in your lives. I’m not going to succumb to the temptation to tell you that these are the best days of your lives and indeed I hope that there are still better things to come and many of them. I am not going to talk too much about when I was a girl, when you could walk barefoot on Sydney beaches, but I can’t resist saying this is a wonderful time to be embarking on a career, particularly in science, and I do want to say that when I was a girl the values Australia cherished above all were tolerance and giving everyone a fair go in a society on the brink of massive cultural transformation due to immigration. Today's Australia is diverse in a way we couldn't have imagined in the fifties, and immeasurably richer. Today is a day for looking to the future. Around twenty five hundred years ago, Heraclitus said, “there is nothing permanent except change”. In the absence of a crystal ball, making predictions is chancy, and the best we can do is to position for the future. You can be confident that your experiences and education at the University of Sydney have fitted you to manage a variety of possible futures. Predicting those futures is another matter. A group of scientists got together in the late 1930’s to predict major future directions in science. They came up with synthetic petroleum, and synthetic rubber. They failed to predict antibiotics, rocket and space travel, nuclear power, the transistor or the explosion in computer and information and communications technology, let alone R2D2 or the South Park genetic engineering farm. The Bureau of Industry Economics reporting recently on the performance of Australian science, pointed to the whimsical nature of prediction in science and technology. Charles Duell US Patent Office, 899, “Everything that can be invented has been invented”. IBM 1948, “The computer has no commercial future”. Thomas Edison, 1895, “The possibilities of the aeroplane have been exhausted”. Astronomer Royal, 1956, “Space travel is utter bilge”. That was one year before Sputnik. One of the visions Bob Hawke, aided by Barry Jones, had for Australia, unhappily one that has not yet been fulfilled is that we should become a clever country. This notion recognises the direct relationship between a country’s strength in research and development and its wealth generation. In predicting your futures, I can be absolutely sure that it is the products of research which will shape your lives. So, today I want to speak about health and medical research in Australia. I am reassured in so doing by a recent public opinion poll conducted for the Australian Society for Medical Research which showed that the community strongly endorsed the importance of research to health care in Australia and that people felt Australia should do significantly more medical research. It is important to recognise that Australian medical and health research, indeed Australian scientific research as a whole, like the Australian Ballet and like the Australian Cricket Team is one of the jewels in the national crown. And my own School, the John Curtin School of the ANU, has a very prominent place. Australia’s first Nobel Laureate in medicine, Howard Florey was instrumental in founding the School, and two of Australia’s 3 Nobel Laureates in medicine have done their prize winning research in the School, Eccles in 1963 and Doherty in 1996. Health and medical research is something Australia does very well. Let me quote the PM, John Howard “Any balance sheet of human progress over the last couple of generations will tell us that there is no area of human endeavour where there has been more success than in the area of medical science and medical research. The unbelievable progress that has been made in that area, all around the world, is something that ought to give us, as human beings, part of the human race, an immense amount of pride”.

Research is original, creative, intellectual activity leading to the generation of new knowledge. Spin-offs come as often as not from curiosity-driven research. When Prime Minister Gladstone visited the laboratory of Michael Faraday and enquired whether this esoteric substance called electricity would ever have any practical applications, Farady replied, “one day sir you will tax it”. Having spent a couple of years in the bureaucracy, I can assure you nothing is more practical than that. To quote Paul Rogers, a US Congressman who has actively promoted medical research in the US, “Knowledge for diagnosis comes from research, knowledge for treatment comes from research, knowledge for cures comes from research. Medical research is the beginning, the starting point in hope, in efforts to diagnose, treat, or cure the diseases of mankind”. Put more simply, today’s treatment is yesterday’s research. Today’s research is tomorrow’s treatment. A recent article in the prestigious international journal Science reminded us that lithium treatment for manic depressive disorder has saved the United States alone, over 145 billion dollars in hospitalisation costs and that the discovery of the role of Helicobacter pylori in ulcer disease saves around $US600 to 800 million annually in treatment costs. What that article did not mention was that both were Australian discoveries. Extrapolating these arguments to this country, it’s apparent that these discoveries alone have led to savings well in excess of the cost of our entire national health research effort ever. Most Australians rate good health as their number one priority and most Australians accept that medical research must be undertaken to improve and maintain human health. This notwithstanding, we are often asked why Australia should do medical research rather than simply import it from overseas, as we do with so much else The answers are simple. We undertake research to contribute to world knowledge. We have less than 0.5% of the world’s population but we do 2.5% of the research. Much outstanding health and medical research has been done in this University. In Australia research is carried out to ensure a broad base of expertise in the professions delivering health care, teaching health care, and administering health care. Research is carried out to ensure a broad base of expertise in biological, behavioural and social science. In this way we can deal with uniquely Australian problems. For example, research into Aboriginal health will never be done overseas; it must be done here. Conditions like melanoma and asthma occur world-wide but are more common in Australia than anywhere else. We do research locally to provide us with local expertise. To respond to new diseases, on-site expertise is necessary- in terms of disease containment the Australian response to AIDS has been outstanding. We have also responded to old diseases - we lead the world in reducing road traffic accident deaths in men, we have been very successful in reducing heart attack and stroke, and we have cut smoking rates in men from 70% during WWII to under 30% today. In case there is anyone here who doesn’t understand the significance of these figures, by 2020 according to WHO, tobacco will be the biggest single cause of death world wide, accounting for 9.6% of all deaths. Medical research cannot be bought off the shelf or to order. Nether can quality standards in health care. We need a highly trained research workforce with relevant expertise and interest. The critical climate produced by research is the best in which to train young people. You have had that critical climate in your education. The health and future of Australian research and Australian health care depends on the recognition by all Australians of the importance of research to our culture and to our development. Science and research need advocates. Translation of research into practice may take decades. Research needs a long-term investment and a long-term commitment, and it needs the advocacy of everyone in this room. Australian health and medical research has a star-studded history. I am confident that it has a very exciting future and I am confident also that here is an equally exciting future in store for today’s graduates.

I extend every good wish for the future to you and your families and friends who have helped you make it here today.