Page 8 - Luce 2016

N ews a nd Events

The Interview:

Professor Susan Sawyer (1980)

Paediatrician

Shelley Roberts talks with Council Member Prof Susan
Sawyer, Geoff and Helen Handbury Chair of Adolescent
Health at The University of Melbourne; Director, Royal
Children’s Hospital Centre for Adolescent Health; and
research fellow, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute

Can you share with us how your I was active in the
relationship with Janet Clarke Hall has Student Club from
evolved over the years? my first years at JCH
but the orientation
I was a country kid when I came to JCH. of the student body
Having spent my primary school years now feels far more
at Preshil, a progressive primary school outward looking.
in Melbourne, we then moved to the As a studious and
country and I attended Wodonga High bookish medical
School. Living in College when returning student, I wonder
to Melbourne for university made sense if I might also have
and I loved living at JCH. I enjoyed the felt better aligned
exposure to the variety of students: from with contemporary
the highly studious to the highly fun students at JCH,
loving; from a range of faculties; and from with their embrace
across Victoria (there were not many of academic
interstate or international students in excellence, than I
those days). I greatly enjoyed the diversity did with my peers
of the student community which, even in the 1980s. But we
though it was much more limited than all grow up!
it is now, felt very different from rural At the World Bank in Washington DC
Victoria. While it was a relatively short
period of my life, it was very influential. We have all heard of The Lancet, bringing coherence to a complex field
the world’s leading medical journal. and providing a blueprint for future
JCH’s façade (the reason I chose JCH over Can you tell us about your work as actions. The publication is a 25,000
other colleges) continued to orientate me a Commissioner on The Lancet’s word report that comprises the whole
to the College and university in the many Commission on Adolescent Health and edition of the weekly journal.
years I then spent living in Parkville as an Well-being?
academic paediatrician at the University At that time, most Lancet Commissions
of Melbourne based at the Royal This has been the most extraordinary were led by a single university. While
Children’s Hospital. I was invited to give academic opportunity. The Lancet was it was a great honour to be invited to
the inaugural Betty Wilmot lecture (Betty the first medical journal to publish lead this work for the University of
was a significant Victorian child public themed papers or series. In 2007 and Melbourne, and notwithstanding the
health advocate who’d made a bequest again in 2012, Professor George Patton University’s strengths in adolescent
to JCH) after which I was invited to join (the previous director of the Centre for health and wellbeing, the field of
the Council. I’ve been honored to be a Adolescent Health who happens to be adolescent health is relatively new,
member of the Council since then. my husband) and I led two series for The with insufficient technical expertise.
Lancet on Adolescent Health, focusing on We felt strongly that an opportunity
In what ways do you think the College the 10–24 year old age group. After the for this Commission was to build
culture has changed since the young 2012 series, Richard Horton, the highly on international collaborations and
Susan Sawyer was here back in the 80s? astute and forward thinking editor of The partnerships that we had started to
Lancet, came back to us and announced, establish in the 2012 Lancet series on
I’m pleased that many elements of the ‘the job isn’t done’, with an invitation to adolescent health.
1980s College culture that I grew up with lead a Commission on adolescent health
have changed – pub crawls were really and well-being. Our response at that time The result was that The University of
not my style. But the greater change is was, ‘What’s a Commission?’ Melbourne led the Commission in
the breadth of cultural engagement. I am partnership with University College
astounded at the quality of our students’ We learnt that Lancet Commissions are London, the London School of Hygiene
musical performances and of the amazing an opportunity to explore complex issues and Tropical Medicine and Columbia
speakers who are part of the College for which the solutions don’t reside University, New York. We selected
calendar - there is a cultural and political within a single discipline. The idea is to 27 Commissioners from 14 different
richness that felt harder to access in my pull together a group of ‘Commissioners’ countries whose multidisciplinary
time. – typically from a single university – to expertise spanned from public health
lead a body of research with the goal of to clinical medicine and neuroscience,
8 LUCE Number 15 2016