THE CONFAB WITH MICHAEL G IN CONVERSATION WITH DR ROLF GOMES

When  Rolf  was confronted with how differently cardiac patients were treated in rural and remote Australia, he decided to do something about it. He designed and launched the first Heart of Australia mobile ‘Heart Trucks’ to visit remote communities. 

Heart of Australia provides equitable access to specialist healthcare services and testing in rural, remote, and First Nations communities across Queensland.

Rolf’s vision, ingenuity and tenacity have had a far-reaching impact on rural health and medicine in Australia, helping to save lives and ensure that rural patients have access to clinical services without having to travel long distances

Join me on the ConFab to gain an understanding of his life journey and passions.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Welcome to the Confab with Michael G on the People Powered Radio 2XFM 98.3. We're streaming online and on demand on twoxfm.org.au. Tonight our guest is Rolf. Now Rolf is a man behind Heart of Australia, which provides equitable access to specialized healthcare services and testing in remote, rural, and First Nations communities across Queensland. Tonight we're going to learn a little bit about Rolf's life journey and passions. Welcome to the Confab with Mike G.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Once upon a time it bears so fine.

SPEAKER_04 6:34

I'm good, thanks, Mike. I understand that you were awarded the Australian of the Year for Queensland.

SPEAKER_05 6:42

That's right. Is that is that the correct title for it? Yeah, that's correct. The 2026 Queensland Australian of the Year.

SPEAKER_04 6:50

Well, it was well deserved. I've had a look at your CV, good sir, and you're doing a wonderful, a wonderful and exciting activity. We'll talk about that in part two. But before we kick off the programme tonight, would you like to introduce your first track? Who is the performer? And why did you select it?

SPEAKER_05 7:08

My first track is uh the performer's Bob Dylan, uh the song's like a Rolling Stone. And I suppose the reason why I selected it is because there's so many elements in that song which talk about how your circumstances in life can't be taken for granted and they can change very quickly. And it's a song when I listen to it, it's a song about not being judgmental, it's a song about empathy, and I think they were traits of my parents, the way I was brought up, to think about other people, to uh not get too carried away with your own good fortune or otherwise, and to really look for happiness by trying to make other people happy.

SPEAKER_04 8:00

Ralph, you just mentioned there, your mum and dad. Could you tell me a little bit about them?

SPEAKER_05 8:05

So my my mum was uh born in India in uh in a village called Krishnanaga, which is near close to Bangladesh actually, from a family of nine children. Her mother w was a housewife, I guess you would say. Her father was a police officer. Her father also uh practiced a form of homeopathy. And you know, it's something I remember actually visiting my grandparents' house in the village, catching the train out there on the school holidays, it was quite an adventure that they'd have this two bedroom well, two room house really, with the kitchen outdoors, but there's a portion of the house which was uh uh quarantined with the little curtain which he drew across, and as villagers from the villagers came with sick kids and ailments and they'd knock on the door, uh he'd you know, pull the curtain and uh interview them and I guess find out about the illnesses and then he'd go off into a cupboard and mix these pills together and so it was I guess my first my first contact with any form of medicine. It wasn't Western medicine, that's for sure, but I always did wonder what happened behind the curtain. You know, did these people get better, were they terribly sick? Uh so my mum grew up in in that sort of um environment, but she was obviously very bright because she went from scholarship to scholarship and um did quite well. I think her her degree was an arts, she did an arts degree and um became quite highly ranked in the state. So she was uh even from a very young person, clearly very aspirational, because of all the siblings, she seems to have been the one who's gone down that path of uh trying to to really achieve as much as she could academically. And what about your dad? My dad uh also came from a family of nine. Uh his father was a very educated gentleman, um uh Daniel Gomes. Uh his father had a maths degree, um a law degree, and I think he had a science degree as well, and uh he did a part of his study in in Oxford and uh myself and my parents we were Catholic uh uh and the Catholic community in India in Calcutta is very small. But the church actually recognized that as a young man he was quite gifted intellectually and raised money to send him overseas to get his education. And when he came back he did a lot of um pro-bono charity work for the Catholic community in Calcutta. So uh there's my my dad himself uh was one of, as mentioned, one of nine children. I think he was somewhere in the middle there. Uh he went on to get an economics degree in customs in India prior to prior to leaving come to Australia. So when do they come to Australia? My parents uh came to Australia in 1983. Uh they arrived in Australia with uh four kids, and as my dad reminded me one day when I was about thirteen thirteen or fourteen, he said, you know, it was uh uh it was uh quite scary for us. We we turned up with four kids, four suitcases and two hundred dollars. And uh I had asked my mum about the two hundred dollars and she found an article which was in her church uh newsletter where another lady in similar circumstances had written this article and pointed out that back in those days you're allowed I think it was like seven dollars fifty US per airline ticket which you could bring into the country. So as obviously as a nine-year-old you're completely oblivious to what your parents are experiencing. You're just very excited to be in a new place with televisions and traffic lights and cars and uh milk bars and lolly shops. But I think my parents it was very brave of them in hindsight to have done that and probably had quite a tough time when they first came to Australia.

SPEAKER_04 12:19

So what part of Australia did they um settle?

SPEAKER_05 12:22

Uh initially we were in East St Kilda in Melbourne, and back in the eighties East St Kilda is a lot different to what it is now. It was uh probably a a rougher neighbourhood back then. Having said that, again, as a nine year old when you're down at the park mucking around with BMX as with your friends, you're you're not aware of these things. It was certainly quieter than the streets of Calcutta.

SPEAKER_04 12:46

Yeah, so you you come to Australia, you're nine years of age in in Melbourne. Were you in it with a group of other Indian children or were you in a mixed cultural group?

SPEAKER_05 12:55

No, and my parents are Anglo Indian, so we always spoke English even back in India at home. And you know, the British having been in India, there's uh an Anglo Indian community there. My paternal grandmother's in fact fully Nepalese. So when we came to Australia, my my parents and I thanked them for this, were always of the view that we should get amongst it. And uh here we are in this fantastic country. Let's uh make use of all the opportunities we dreamed of, which is why they decided to come and you know, explore, make friends, learn how to play with the oval shaped ball, all those things.

SPEAKER_04 13:34

And so you you come to Australia, you're nine years of age, you go into primary school. What was that Were you in primary school before you left? It described to me the difference between the school in Calcutta and now into Australia in St Kilda and now your first day in school in Australia. What were the differences?

SPEAKER_05 13:56

Well, getting to school was certainly different. I used to uh get to school in a rickshaw, but in the pouring monsoon rain, you'd uh be in this rickshaw and this fellow would pull you along and I remember one day actually it was flooding and the waters were knee high and he just disappeared in front of me, fell down a manhole. It gave both of us the fright of our lives. So getting to school was certainly different in India than uh in Australia. When I arrived in Australia, and I think this would be true for uh not just myself, I uh I found things very easy because the standard of education in India was a lot a lot higher, I felt, especially you know, for example, I was learning history, geography, I knew my timetable till 16 and I was in grade four. Uh but I did I found the uh way of learning i uh a lot more enjoyable. It was less rote learning, it was more imaginative types of learning, and I thought that was very refreshing. We weren't asked to remember and recite long poems, uh we didn't have to recite our sixteen times tables, it was more a creative form of learning, and I think that's very important.

SPEAKER_04 15:11

What about your teachers? The style of teaching, you you're talking about giving more opportunity for your for them for the mind to grow than than rote sort of learning. The di the different style of teaching or the even the teachers between Calcutta and here in Australia.

SPEAKER_05 15:26

Well in Calcutta it was very academically focused. You get a report card I think every month. You'd have to show your parents and they'd have to sign it off and they'd be able to track whether you were performing or not. Thankfully I didn't have too much difficulty academically. So it wasn't particularly stressful. Certainly in Australia in the first few years I didn't have that much difficulty academically. I th I enjoyed the the learning style in Australia a lot more. I f I thought it offered you a lot more mental freedom to be creative, to be questioning, and those elements definitely were uh weren't promoted uh in the in the Indian style of learning, but not in nineteen eighty-three anyway.

SPEAKER_04 16:07

Were there any teachers in your primary school period while you were in St. Ulda that uh stood out or made an impression?

SPEAKER_05 16:14

Um my primary school teachers uh they were fine, but I think in it was more in secondary school that I had teachers which uh really encouraged me and I and I do remember them and they probably did make a t an incredible impression. There was uh a teacher I had, Mr. Underwood, who was my maths teacher, and I just could see the joy in his face when I'd get something right. He'd put up a problem on the board and I'd be able to solve it, and I could just the joy and which he was experiencing from seeing his students learn and the feedback I was getting from meeting those milestones um it it encouraged me academically. I wasn't particularly into sport. Not that I avoided sport, but I wasn't obsessed with it or dying to get out there lunchtime and play sport like other kids might have been. I actually really enjoyed learning and I think that's never left me. The the curiosity of finding something out to discovering how something works. There's a lot of joy in that for me. And and no one else needs to know about it. It doesn't have to have a a prize attached to it, just the simple joy of following your curiosity and discovering something is above and beyond for what I expect.

SPEAKER_04 17:36

And what sort of subjects were they in that you were experiencing these this this excitement?

SPEAKER_05 17:42

Well, certainly science based subjects. I I just loved learning about anything and everything. And my mum, while when she came to Australia, like a lot of immigrants, they they abandoned their own aspiration and it's it's transferred into the aspiration uh in their kids and uh and they receive their fulfillment not by what they're achieving but seeing what their children achieve, you know, which sort of validates their reasons for leaving everything behind and coming to a new country. But my mum, while she didn't have the opportunities, she always had this curious scientific probing mind and instilled that in the children. And I remember, for example, in the she would find these newspaper articles, artic scientific type articles about discoveries and space and things and medicine, and she'd cut them out and she'd place them in the toilet of all places because she knew when we were in there we'd had nothing better to do, we might as well pick 'em up and read them. And after a while you learnt you better read them 'cause she's gonna ask you about 'em when you come out. So you you got your little bit of general knowledge for the week.

SPEAKER_04 18:54

And what did your father do? Um did he I mean you talked about your mum then, about her focusing on the children. D was your father able to take up a profession that uh related to his qualifications or take a different direction?

SPEAKER_05 19:08

No, my um my mum got a job very early and um she both my parents when they arrived, they walked out they got dressed f walked down the street and I I guess knocked from door to door looking for a job and my mum got a job working, I think initially for the wheat board as a reception uh receptionist, I suppose. And my dad took a bit longer, but eventually he got a job working for the railways. And my mum tells the story that uh he came home and the r the railways had given him this uniform which included a pair of boots and she said as he unwrapped it he was almost in tears 'cause he was so proud to be given this job. And he stuck with the railways for the next forty years. In fact they they gave him uh an award, they made up an award for him because they said he was the only employee they'd had who hadn't taken a sick day in ten years. He'd um he'd take all the shifts, every shift which came along he'd he'd accept. And sometimes I wish he hadn't, 'cause he missed out on a lot of my uh school ceremonies and awards and uh it was always no, I can't take a day off. If I take a day off, uh you know, Rodney will be on his own and uh I always wondered who Rodney was. I'd love to have met him. But uh, you know, it was just that work ethic and trying to save every penny so that we could go to the school camps and we could get some piano lessons and we could have a little bit more. But uh I think they would be happy with how we all turned out.

SPEAKER_04 20:36

The narrative around the the kitchen table at meal time, uh given that your mum and dad were educated and given that they really appreciated living in Australia, what was the topics like around the mealtimes?

SPEAKER_05 20:49

Well, my mum, even till the day she died, could tell you everything about American politics. She was just one of these people who, despite living a fairly simple life, would find out about things. She'd be reading the papers, she'd she had a television in her room and she'd watch the American news and wasn't particularly strongly opinionated about anything, but very aware of what was going on. My dad was a very quiet person and um I would describe my mum, if she was the steering wheel, he was the engine. He had an incredible capacity to work, work, work. He always had two jobs. He worked at the railways, he'd come home, then he'd go work in a call centre in the evening. It'd be late at night, we'd hear the back door open, and he'd we know he'd come home, and sometimes in the morning before we got up we'd yeah hear the door open again and he's left for work. So he he was and it was a very good partnership because she made all the decisions and he just put his head down like a Clydesdale and worked and and they seem it seemed to work for them. But a few times When he did say things, he'd you know there'd be a depth in what he said. In fact, just before he passed away, uh he said to me, he said, Rolf, go through life, try and go through life with a smile on your face, because it's going to be a lot more enjoyable that way. So that's the type of thing he would come out with. You know, I remember once I was asking him about looking into what someone had done, and he said, Look, I'll just warn you, if you go digging for worms, be prepared to find snakes. So he'd pass on these little comments which made you realise that whilst he didn't speak much he thought very deeply. But what he was amazing at doing was uh associating and being playful like with young kids. You know, he could he could he could be on his f on his hands on the floor, people you know, kids riding his back like a horse, and get down to that level of joy and humour and to see him interact like that with the little kids. But it was a real uh gift which he had to to not take life too seriously, but think serious you know, he he thought deeply but lived lightly.

SPEAKER_04 23:14

Now Rolf, you said to me before just just a moment ago that you weren't into sports so much. Out of school, what kept your mind entertained?

SPEAKER_05 23:21

Well, when I said I wasn't into sports, and I was thinking about this the other day, because my kids, I'm always driving them to sport on the weekend, and I thought about it, I said, why didn't I play weekend sports? Uh to a large extent it wasn't an option for myself. Whilst my dad was always working, my mum didn't drive. So my job in the family on a Saturday morning at seven o'clock was to get up, get ready, catch the bus with my mum and carry the shopping bags. And I didn't even think twice about it. I I probably didn't know that there was sport going on. That was my reality. I was the guy who helped mum carry the shopping on a Saturday morning. So that I do I re do I miss it? Do I regret it? No, I I mean I turned out alright, I think.

SPEAKER_04 24:06

Rolf, you we'll talk about your personal development and career in part two. But you're in high school, you enjoyed high school. In in the time that you're in high school, was that in uh did that go up to year twelve?

SPEAKER_05 24:21

The first high school I went to only went up to year ten. And then after that, if you wanted to do year eleven and twelve, you had to find another school. And I really enjoyed year seven to year ten. I think I did was doing quite well, won a lot of academic awards. I was a college vice captain and um i it's funny, I wasn't I wasn't the sporty go out on the weekend type of person, but I was well liked by my peers, even though I was more of an academic style of person because and it's probably had a a role to play as to why I moved away from engineering into medicine eventually. So anyway, I enjoyed year ten, then I went to a college called St. Bede's College for year eleven and twelve. And moving school at that time and year ten moving in year eleven probably wasn't the best for me, uh, in the sense that I had to adjust, which I did, that was fine. I uh again I became a college leader there, um, did reasonably well academically and uh pursued a k career at my first career in fact in electrical engineering at Melbourne Uni.

SPEAKER_04 25:32

We'll we'll come to that shortly. But what was the issue with adapting for from the years uh in the short in a period at sort of the junior high to the years eleven and twelve? What was the real key thing that was uh causing you grief?

SPEAKER_05 25:47

Uh I wouldn't say it was causing me grief, but I think going from grade six to grade seven, kids are a lot more flexible, less set in their friendship groups. I i it wasn't it wasn't an issue transitioning at all because every kid pretty much went from to a new school, everyone was new. Going from year ten to year eleven where uh some of these kids had been well the majority had been there since year seven and you were the new the small fish in the big pond again, and having to find a group fit in. Uh it wasn't particularly difficult. I didn't you know, I was well well embraced, I think. But it it was it was different than having to do that when you're younger.

SPEAKER_04 26:30

Now you're saying that you we'll talk more about your career part two, but you said you were going into electrical engineering. Was that something that you were thinking about doing in years eleven and twelve?

SPEAKER_05 26:40

In year eleven and twelve I don't think I knew what I wanted to do. And that's why I look at my kids today and I understand exactly where their mind's at. But I knew I was good at maths, I knew I was good at physics, I enjoyed science, um, I got the grades to get into engineering. I thought, well, these are subjects I'm good at. Uh um why not?

SPEAKER_04 27:01

All right, well pause there, Rolf, and because we'll go into part two and talk about those the the change from an engineering to where you are now. But before you go to part two, would you like to introduce your second track? The title of the track, Who is the performer, and why did you select it?

SPEAKER_05 27:16

The second track, the performer is Marvin Gay, and the song is Sexual Healing. And the reason why I selected it is firstly because I've always liked Marvin Gay, but that song reminds me of a period in my life which was just so full of fun, discovery, and really developing my my own character, my own personality, and uh probably a lot of bad karaoke renditions of that song as well. But look, I love the song, but I put it in there because it was it just for me, that period of my life was just complete freedom, complete fun, joy, limited responsibility, and I wouldn't change it for a thing.

unknown 31:37

Come back home.

SPEAKER_04 31:43

Welcome back, Rolf. How are you, good sir?

SPEAKER_05 31:45

Oh well, thanks, Mike.

SPEAKER_04 31:47

Well, it's been a pleasure listening to your story to date, but we're going to go now from being an engineer through to medical. But you which uni did you go to to study engineering? University of Melbourne. And what was that like?

SPEAKER_05 32:02

Uh it was fantastic. I I loved my memories at Melbourne Uni. Uh made a great bunch of friends, some of whom I still keep in touch with. I used to um I lived in East Bentley by then, and so I used to catch a a bus, a train, and a tram to get there. I actually enjoyed the travelling, uh meeting all the interesting people at the station and the train. And I feel very fortunate to have been a uni student and actually been a uni student at a time where there was no online work because it meant you had to turn up. And I that environment where you've got young minds pushing the boundaries, university clubs, that rebelliousness, that questioning atmosphere. It's just a a real privilege to have experienced that in my life. In fact, I I've been privileged to have experienced it twice.

SPEAKER_04 32:55

But let's focus on engineering. So you went through the engineering degree. Did anybody any of the professors or tutors stand out in that period of time in your life?

SPEAKER_05 33:04

Um, when I went through my engineering degree, I was so interested in so many other things. I think it was a bit of a blur. I mean, I obviously did well enough to get through the degree, and if you I I say to people that you can't avoid mathematics and engineering, certainly not electrical engineering, and it gets quite heavy towards the end. And when when I compare my second degree, which is medicine, I actually think the engineering degree is harder because whilst the medicine is a labor of love, a volume uh dependent course to a large extent, the the volume's high. In engineering and in mathematics it's very conceptual. You have to be able to grasp these concepts which take you to the next stage. And having experienced both, I think they've uh they still continue to play an important part in my life. Uh learning to think like an engineer where you have to f ultimately come up with a solution. It can't be something masked in politics or marketing, it has to be based in fact. You can't build a politically correct bridge, it has to be factually correct, otherwise it'll fall over. That quest to really distill down to the truth of the matter is uh part of the DNA of good engineer.

SPEAKER_04 34:22

Rolf, did you go into a profession of engineering at the end of that degree or what was your journey from that point?

SPEAKER_05 34:29

So I I did. I um worked two years for a petrochemical company in in Collins Street in Melbourne, actually. And uh working in uh in computer type engineering in a program called SAP at the time. Uh it w it was good. I was uh I had a well paid job. I got along well with all my workmates. Uh the CEO at the time uh I got along very well with him. It it was enjoyable, but it started to dawn on me that and this probably comes back to my time in high school, that I really like chatting to people all day. That that's ultimately I think wh why I think I'm better suited to medicine than engineering. I think engineering certainly has the intellectual challenges for me, and I still find myself drawn into it, looking up videos on how things work, reading textbooks, science textbooks, mathematics textbooks. But if I had to do something every day, I could think of nothing better than meeting many people in a day and finding out how they've been, what they've been doing with their lives, and and medicine offers me that experience.

SPEAKER_04 35:38

And what was the medical university? Did you study medicine in Melbourne?

SPEAKER_05 35:42

No. So at the time I wanted to study medicine, it was being offered as a graduate course in uh at the University of Queensland, Flinders University, and there was a university in New South Wales, I think, which was also offering a graduate course. And what it meant was if you had a degree prior, instead of doing six years of medicine, you could do medicine in four years. So I applied to Queensland, I um I guess I sat the exam and did the interview and uh and the rest is history to some extent.

SPEAKER_04 36:10

What was that journey like? Did you did you have a a good time? Well that's your fair, you can't have a good time at university, but you could have a challenging time, intellectual time, and the study of medicine is complex. What was that journey like?

SPEAKER_05 36:24

Look, uh I loved my medicine degree. I was living alone, I'd moved up to Queensland, I was living alone in a unit, I went down cash converters, I bought myself an electric guitar, probably with money my parents have given me to buy textbooks. I had a lot I'd made quite a lot of friends. It was probably one of the most enjoyable times in my life because I'd gone from the freedom of being a university student to having to knuckle down and working in a career job to then having the second opportunity to experience that freedom again. And when you're a university student, y there is this pathway set out for you. And if someone were to ask you what are you doing next year, it's like, well I'm doing second year med or I'm doing third year med, I'm doing fourth year med. And assuming you you knew that's what you had to accomplish each year, the rest was complete mental freedom to let your mind wander. And uh so I learned to play the guitar, I I always knew a little bit about how to play the piano. I bought myself an old piano, I learned to get better at that. I um I started writing songs, I um all all all different things. But it was a it was a very colourful period in my life where I had a a hell of a lot of fun. I certainly didn't lock myself away in a room with textbooks.

SPEAKER_04 37:46

All medical students have to st have to go through rotations in hospitals. That was that the case for yourself?

SPEAKER_05 37:52

Uh that's right. As you you have to do what your bedside coaching, your your rotations through the different departments. I people say, Why did you choose to do cardiology? And and I say to them 'cause the other stuff was just too hard. And they think I'm being modest, but I'm not. If you're someone who's been through an engineering degree, cardiology is the most intuitive discipline. You've got a pump with four chambers, four valves, some electrics, some plumbing, some hemodynamics, and it makes perfect sense. I think all the smart doctors probably go on to do other things.

SPEAKER_04 38:29

Now most people will say that, you know, an engineer, it's great, you're dealing with numbers, you're dealing with textbooks, you're dealing with facts. You're then now dealing with people. Was what you experienced in your first period of time out in out in the public system in in your rotation what lessons did you learn with your engagement with patients over that period of time?

SPEAKER_05 38:49

One of the things uh um I learned was that no one really cares how much you know until they know how much you care. It was um uh a quote I think is attributed to Theodore Roosevelt from memory. But it's so true that you can read about diseases, but diseases come wrapped in people. And unless you understand the person, that the quality of that interaction is never going to be fantastic. The other thing medicine taught me, but I was lucky enough to have a fairly a fairly humble beginning, is that not everyone's circumstances uh are the same as yours. You know, y I I c I only know the experiences I've experienced and to really practice medicine and not get drawn into social justice or and and really try and empathize as a doctor. I think that a key and sometimes a challenge as well, because you know, in in medicine you f experience a full gamut of human experience from sadness to happiness from people who might have different views to you, but you've got to put that aside and um you know, that's not your role to play. So it challenges you in many ways which other professions don't. I think a lot of professions can challenge you intellectually, but there are very few which can challenge you emotionally, uh like medicine can, and and that's a both a challenge and a joy.

SPEAKER_04 40:15

So you've you wanted to be a cardiologist. Does that mean, Rolf, that you are a specialist in that field or not?

SPEAKER_05 40:21

Yeah, so I'm a cardiologist. Uh that's my specialty.

SPEAKER_04 40:25

So after studying, doing your rotations through the hospital through the hospital system, where did your profession take you then?

SPEAKER_05 40:32

Well, you you graduate from medicine, you do your intern year, you do another three years as a junior doctor, then you uh study to do your physician's exam, which is another year. So you're looking at about four or five years, and then you do your uh three years of advanced training as a cardiologist, and then often a fellowship year. So by the time you you graduated as a specialist, you're actually quite old. Um but uh no, it's it's good. It's it's a journey and it's a very enjoyable journey, and I wouldn't don't necessarily regret it in any way.

SPEAKER_04 41:06

So you've gone out into private practice. That was up in Queensland?

SPEAKER_05 41:10

In Queensland, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:11

And did you still continue your interest in playing the guitar and and the piano?

SPEAKER_05 41:16

Yes, I I'm still interested, but now I have um three teenage kids, so times off the essence. But look, I um there's science is a very factual discipline and music for me is very unstructured and creative and I like that. I do I do uh like the fact that engineering is so grounded in facts that sometimes when the world makes no sense at all, I find myself finding sanctuary in engineering textbooks. I just gotta get back to what's real. But uh having that background it teaches you to think differently. Uh when you're listening to uh someone explaining something or a conversation, you're trying to listen with those filters that do I really understand what's being spoken about or is it just buzzwords? You know, when people talk about we're going to create end-to-end solutions, that means nothing to an engineer. You know, it's it's a phrase, it's it's marketing babble, but if you walked out of the room and someone said build an end-to-end solution, I don't know if I'd know where to start.

SPEAKER_04 42:27

Before we kick into talking about your current venture, which has probably been going for some time, did volunteering or working in that area of medicine when did that start in your mind? Perhaps we have to talk about specifics at the moment, but when did you start thinking about broadening the service delivery and f perhaps that that there was a need in the broader community?

SPEAKER_05 42:50

Well, there are a couple of things I had no idea about is and one is how much I would enjoy being in the countryside. I was born in Calcutta, people ask me, Were you born in the bush? I say no, quite the opposite. I was born in Calcutta, which is more like an ant's nest than the bush. But as a junior doctor, when they send you out to these places, I really, really enjoyed being out there and I really, really enjoyed being amongst those people. Um I found it very refreshing. They were real people, they were straight shooters, they were they had a stoicism, they they they weren't the the the squeaky wheel. But at the same time I I realized that because they weren't the squeaky wheel, country people aren't the squeaky wheel when it comes to their health problems, certainly not indigenous people. Because of that they were basically forgotten and they would have the same ailments, the same dying of the same things and just accepting that when your time's up, your time's up. That was the attitude. And I thought it was not just sad, but where other people saw difficulty and despair, I saw a great opportunity to do something. Something practical and something which I think which would be appreciated in the fullness of home.

SPEAKER_04 44:04

In the C V that I read without your good self, it talks about, as you mentioned, an indigenous people, First Nations people. What was your first engagement with that culture like as a doctor?

SPEAKER_05 44:17

Well, as a junior doctor, they do send you out to some of these more remote places, so places like Palm Island. I have always thought that in many ways, while we're different, there are some things which are universally binding. For example, I think when a child is born, that happiness and joy uh transcends all cultures. When someone dies, that sadness is common to all cultures. When you know the peer people's experience of suffering. Always think sometimes we overcomplicate things, you know, and if we just get back to our commonality and what we're trying to achieve, you know, things become clearer. I also think that most people understand when you're being honest with them. And I've always tried to approach things that way. I mean, I can understand why there's um suspicion and fear on on Western medicine. You know, my um my eldest brother in fact passed away when he was five in India. And from what I suspect in hindsight it was a ruptured appendix. But following his death my parents became very uh disengaged with with health in in particular to some extent I think even their own health, avoiding seeing doctors, and which is a shame because they've both passed away now from things which would have been avoidable. So that experience left them with the suspicion of the medical profession. So I can underst to some extent I understand but you know, again when you when you're talking to someone and you say, Look, I can see you've got young kids the same age as mine, and I I'd love to be around to see my young kids grow up and get married and have grandkids for one day. Do you making sure you st stay alive? I mean that's is that a conversation about medicine or is that a conversation about humanity and just being a one human being to another, sharing what we all want, a life without suffering and a long life. So in medicine usually you get to play the good guy most of the time, but finding that that starting point in which you can bring someone on a journey with their health with you is a bit of an art.

SPEAKER_04 46:27

Now you're currently heading an organization that provides a range of services, health services through this organization. How did that evolve?

SPEAKER_05 46:36

So there I was um looking at out in the bush, looking at these patients and thinking everyone's got a heart, no one's getting younger. But there's nothing out here. If you have chest pain in the city, you can duck out on your lunch break, see a cardiologist, walk on a treadmill, get a stress test, be back at work in an hour. I mean, where I was, it was a two or three day trip. You know, it's gonna cost a lot of money, you're gonna have to find the time. If you you know, if you're mustering cattle, if you're planting a crop because it's just rained, yeah, this is just gonna get shoved to the bottom of the priority list, and it's not gonna happen. And I thought, well, fair enough, um, I can see all the problems. And and this is the thing which would frustrate me. I think a lot of people have admired the mission. We should do something more. You know, we should uh look at you know, regardless of postcode, we we we are entitled to good access to health, and we talk about the tyranny of distance, and to some extent I almost feel that's now being romanticized. The tyranny of distance, the wide sweeping planes, you know, the stoicism of the men in the bush. But really it's a tragedy and it needs to be abolished, the tyranny of distance. So I looked at it differently. I thought, well, you know, I'm not going to, you know, I let I get it, we should be doing more. Uh you know, people can keep talking about the mission, I'm just going to do something practical and make sure people aren't dying in the meantime. And I don't want to find myself house in kilometres somewhere with just my stethoscope, telling someone you've got chest pain, it could be your heart. Here's a referral form to now catch a flight back into the city. I want to turn up with my entire toolbox. Treadmill, an ultrasound machine, whatever I need, and I can't fit any of that in a plane, so why not the back of a truck? So really it's not a particularly sophisticated thought process. It's a very practical thought process, but that's probably an element of being an engineer, coming in where these two professions have collided into this solution. So we with a few like-minded organizations, we built the first truck and it's just um taken off, and now there's soon there's going to be eleven around the country.

SPEAKER_04 48:44

Yeah, I notice you're going into Western Australia. Are you getting support in in a sense I I noticed that there are a number of large or there are a number of organizations supporting. Was it they were just benevolent or they had to be convinced to to support this endeavour?

SPEAKER_05 49:00

No, I think they just like it's an easy story to tell. What are you trying to do? Everyone gets it. The country people miss out, they have a tough time where they are because there's not much in terms of services. So the story's always been an easy story to tell. I actually think they love the fact that someone did something about it. And this is the feedback which I get from the country patients. In their own words, they say we love the fact that you saw a problem and did something about it. Australians also like supporting a battler. If they can see someone's having a go at doing something right, it's in our nature to try and give them a helping hand. So, you know, there's an element of that. Uh there's an element of um, you know, these organizations looking after the regions, their own backyard in which they operate. There's some sense there. But uh whilst our program began that way, really we we're at the stage now that we want the government to recognise that it's not a pilot program anymore. We celebrated ten years of operations a few years ago. It's a program which has uh grown to 11 trucks across the country. It's seen over 20,000 patients in Queensland, saved perhaps 900 lives, maybe over a thousand by now. So it's a model of care which is no longer a novelty. It's ac we should be looking at it as perhaps the most viable, sustainable model of care to bring services out into the regions.

SPEAKER_04 50:32

And Ralph, on a personal level, I always ask the guests what would they like, where would they like to be, either personally or professionally, in ten say ten years' time?

SPEAKER_05 50:42

In ten years' time I'd like to see um when there's uh a hall of people in the room and the questions asked, can you name the service which brings uh medical services out into the bush? Everyone in that room can put up their hand and say heart of Australia. I want to elevate it to the same level as something as iconic as the flying doctor service, perhaps. We don't have an organization, a brand, a focus which people can relate to, which people can plug into, which governments can tap into to deliver um services strategically, and by strategic I mean from a workforce perspective, from a funding perspective, from you know, looking where it can operate across multiple areas like screening programs to specialists to GPs. But if we could create that infrastructure, if we could create that brand moving forward, I think it'd carry uh Australia a long way into the future.

SPEAKER_04 51:43

And finally, Rolf, we talked a lot about your young life, people that you were involved with, the teachers there. Reflecting back as a child, is there a theme that you think about that drives your your your desire to deliver and support those that you are treating?

SPEAKER_05 52:02

Well, everyone wants to be happy, but I have seen happiness experienced in a different form. I've seen a reflected happiness, probably starting with my parents, where you know, if I was to go down and visit my mum, she would have prepared a whole array of food and she'd stand in the corner and I'd see the happiness on her face watching me eat it. And you know, maybe in trying the secret to making ourselves happy lies in making other people happy and giving us a purpose in life and I think that's I think human beings need a purpose in life because it gets you out of bed in the morning, it makes you feel like you're a productive member of society and you it's like mowing the lawn, you look back and you think, God, I d I've done a good job. It's not that different. We need to feel like we we're contributing. So look, uh when I was uh about twelve or thirteen years old, I walked I came home from school one day, and on the back door which we walked into the house, my mum had put a yellow sticker and it said, If it is to be, it is up to me.

SPEAKER_04 53:13

And you can actually see behind that curtain of your grandfather and how he would have interpreted his patience?

SPEAKER_05 53:19

I think so. I think uh he was someone in the village where people turned to for help. He was someone that I think wanted to make a difference in his community. In the same way I think um and I and I think that message, if it is to be, it is up to me, is important because the world is full of problems. And if we choose to make any of those problems our problems, we're really saying we're going to make our life a bit more complicated. So it's the willingness to do that, to to extend ourselves and and to find better ways of doing things.

SPEAKER_04 53:54

And on that note, good sir, would you like to introduce your last track, The Performer and Why Did You Select It?

SPEAKER_05 54:01

My last track was uh the performer's Louis Armstrong, and the track is What a Wonderful World.

SPEAKER_04 54:08

Thank you for being a guest on the Confab with Michael G.

SPEAKER_05 54:11

Thanks, Michael.

SPEAKER_00 54:15

Red and Blues is G. I see them blue, and I think to myself.