Building healthy lives
Professor Ian O'Connor
At the beginning of this year, I joined the Premier of Queensland Peter Beattie in welcoming our third cohort of medical students to Griffith University. The medical and oral health programs were major initiatives and to many it may appear that these programs marked Griffith University's initial move into the health field. In fact, Griffith not only has a long history of education in the health professions and sciences, we have also used our multidisciplinary approach and strong history of social responsibility to encompass the idea of healthy lives for all Australians across disciplines.
A healthy life is one where the person is not only physically robust but also mentally resilient. It is a life of interconnectedness where there is a sense of belonging. The old Irish saying, "It is in the shelter of each other that the people live", sums up what it really means to belong to a society that looks after its members and empowers them to care for others and to reach out for help when they need it.
In this context, providing health professionals is an important part of the solution to the many crises we face, but it is far from a cure-all for these myriad issues. Our country faces a number of compelling health issues including serious long-term health problems for Indigenous peoples and an ageing Australian population. As Professor Anna Haebich pointed out at the recent launch for the 'Creative for Life' project, it is predicted that in a decade, South-East Queensland's biggest business will be aged care. Health then is not just about providing doctors and dentists who care for the aged, but also about how we as a society provide for all our citizens in need. The 'Creative for Life' project aims to promote creativity and healthy living across cultures with a particular focus on creative ideas for our ageing society.
The aim of 'building healthy lives' most certainly transcends any single Griffith discipline. In fact, the pages of this Griffith Gazette reveal that this has certainly been taken to heart across the University. For example, you will see Griffith Health working to redress Indigenous health inequities, the School of Psychology bringing relief to hassled parents through its P-Tot program, and the School of Public Health's community food garden at the Logan campus helping immigrants build a sense of community.
In listening to the podcast of Professor Haebich's speech from the 'Creative for Life' launch, I was particularly struck by her phrase "everything important comes from those collisions of the heart". We do well to remember that the ideas about building healthy lives in this issue don't just exist as grant proposals and lifeless pieces of paper; they begin as a passion for the researchers, academics and students across our university. Their "collisions of the heart" are making a real difference and are leading the way in our mission to build healthy lives. I trust you will enjoy hearing about them.