Profile Ian Hickie
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday December 16, 2009
He's a 'big picture' thinker, who has paved the way for better mental health care. To be offered two "jobs of a lifetime" is, Ian Hickie acknowledges, a blessing. But like most lucky breaks, the luck was self-made; his years of relentless campaigning for better understanding and treatment of mental health issues made him an obvious choice to lead first the beyondblue national depression initiative and now the Brain and Mind Research Institute (BMRI) in the University of Sydney's medical faculty."Ideally I would have liked to have been at beyondblue for another five years," says Hickie, 50, a professor of psychiatry. "But I had to grab the opportunity to influence the way the institute was set up."The BMRI, established in 2004, is an interdisciplinary institute that brings together 20 teams of clinical practitioners and leading scientists to research and treat diseases of the brain and mind, including depression, dementia and the effects of substance abuse.Hickie says he never would have dreamed such an institute would be formed in his lifetime, because mental health has been a long neglected area of health spending, accompanied by a great deal of stigma and misunderstanding.It's one of the reasons he was attracted to psychiatry in the first place. He also thought it would be a more interesting specialty than, say, doing 45 hip operations a week."Psychiatrists get a bad rap but the really good ones are some of the most interesting people in the world. You don't see them bored by middle age and wanting to play golf or go sailing," Hickie says.He is the only one of seven siblings to follow their father into medicine but he says the others have all inherited their Irish grandfather's passionate belief in the importance of education, social justice and active engagement in society to change things. His working life reflects this, diverging from the typically narrow academic medical career path of specialising in one small area to become a world expert.Instead, he has tried to stay broad and big picture, starting with accepting a Harkness Fellowship in 1993 to study health care policy in the US for 12 months, followed by overhauling and expanding psychiatric services at Sydney's St George's Hospital.Then came the beyondblue and BMRI jobs, both of which involved leading start-up organisations."Across my career, my choices have been seen as dumb by some people," he says. "It's not the sort of thing academics typically do."His latest focus is a campaign to raise the legal drinking age to 19. New research also shows that the young adult brain continues to develop until the mid-20s and alcohol can impair this development.Hickie agrees that this will require a big shift in attitude, including within his own family. He has six children, aged four to 26, and says he has been tougher this year on his 17-year-old school-leaver twins than he was on his older kids. "What really concerns me is that I'm an insider - I know the latest research and my kids and friends are the beneficiaries. Most people don't have a clue. I want to take this information where it matters."THE BIG QUESTIONSBiggest break The beyondblue job [as inaugural director of the depression organisation in 2000]. It was my first job that was truly national and it was so critical to getting mental health on the national agenda.Biggest achievement The advocacy that lead to the COAG agreement of 2006, when the federal and state governments agreed that mental health demanded a national response and started to fund it. But I want to emphasise that this was a collective rather than a personal achievement.Biggest regret Having to move on from beyondblue [in 2003 when he became inaugural executive director of the Brain and Mind Research Institute].Best investment My relationships. The thrill of what I do is the great professional and personal relationships that develop. The work I've been involved in is so people-filled, it's all about what it means to be human.Worst investment Too much time spent on committees that got nowhere. I wish I had spent more time in dialogue with the people who are affected by what I do.Attitude to money I'm opportunity-preoccupied, not asset-preoccupied. My goal is to die in as much debt as I possibly can, with a longer-term perspective to leave things of value to future generations.Personal philosophy From Goethe: "Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do." Knowledge can be the source of great inequality - you must be prepared to make knowledge accessible and useful.
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald