Warwick Plunkett AM

Firstly, may I pay my respects to the traditional custodians of the land upon which we stand, the Gadigal people, and their elders past, present and emerging. Deputy Chancellor, Provost, presiding Dean, presiding Director, members of the University Executive, Academic Board and staff, graduates, their families and friends.

Thank you for that kind introduction; it makes me feel quite old, really, but today is a day for the young, so firstly, may I offer my congratulations to all the new graduates and all their achievements, culminating in today’s important milestone in your life.

You are, in fact, graduating at a time of much change in the delivery of health care in Australia, and with that change comes a great opportunity to make your mark within your chosen profession. The role I play today is to send you away, not only with your graduate certificate, but with inspiration to make a real difference in the years ahead – somewhat of a tall order, I believe.

In thinking back to my own graduation, which was a few long years ago, I had the privilege of hearing the sage words of Sir Herman Black, one of the most distinguished academic commentators of his day. Regrettably, I remember nothing of the pearls of wisdom told to me that day, resulting in my low expectations of influencing such fertile young minds here today.

However, from my research looking into Sir Herman Black’s comments, I noticed his view of universities – notably that they are centres of higher learning, entrusted with the responsibility of promoting knowledge while developing new insights and new horizons. I know from my involvement here at UTS that the innovative teaching practices employed by the Graduate School of Health under the watchful eye of its initial head, Professor Benrimoj, have been very much focused on delivering exactly that.

Now, my message to you today could have followed the suggestions within the speakers’ guide and be about the impact of globalisation on the health professions or the disruption that the advancing technology will cause to your future practice. However, as important as such topics may be, I thought something more personal might resonate more effectively with you, with stories that taught me some important lessons about career and life and perhaps have ever given inspiration to others.

I believe there is no other letter in the alphabet that initiates words that best crystallise our actions than the letter P. Noting that most of the professions represented here today also start with P, and even optometry comes close, I decided that picking some P words which have been instrumental to my success in life might be an appropriate basis for my address. While I’ll mention a number of key P words, the three I’m going to feature and hope will become etched somewhere in your memory after today, possibly examinable, are passion, positivity and persistence.

So, my first story relates to why I chose pharmacy as my lifetime profession and the passion I developed for it during 50 years of practice. For all of you graduating today, this is your second degree, suggesting some time has been taken in choosing your lifetime career. I count myself lucky that I was born to be a pharmacist. Unlike one of my pharmacy lecturers who lay claim to actually being conceived on the dispensary bench, my connection to the profession was far more traditional in that I had a father and great grandfather who were both distinguished pharmacists. Being raised at the back of the family pharmacy during my formative years meant that I never really considered doing anything else in my life other than to become a pharmacist.

To cure a someone’s headache with a single dose of a mysterious draught presented in the soothing pink tones of syrup amaranth as my father did nearly every day from his dispensary told me that being a pharmacist must be the greatest profession that anyone could pursue in life. How wonderful was it that you had the knowledge to actually formulate products that could cure all sorts of ailments of the patients that walked into your pharmacy? Thankfully, the impact of the placebo effect wasn’t fully understood back then.

My father was also heavily involved in organisational pharmacy at a time of significant transition for the profession, from one of extemporaneous dispensing to the supply of new modern medicines. This was the time that I entered the profession, but I had no faith that this new role was likely to be sufficient to sustain my whole professional future. What I quickly came to realise was the passion one had for the application of your professional expertise needed to be linked to a vision of how it should be developed during your future career, and then, even more importantly, committing to be part of that development. I did not believe pharmacists should be confined to simply oversighting the supply of medicines, as important a role as that is. Our expertise now goes to the safe and appropriate use of medicines and achieving the intended health outcomes of the patient from those medicines.

My passion has been to enshrine this as the core activity of pharmacy practice, and although a work is still in progress, I remain positive and persistent in ensuring its eventual application and recognition. So, my advice to you is to always be passionate about your chosen career, be positive about its contribution to public health, but be persistent and proactive in ensuring it will always remain relevant to your patients throughout your whole working life.

My second story is about the last three years of my life. I was forced to relinquish the honour of delivering the graduation occasional address back in 2016 when I was diagnosed with a rare lung cancer and a metastasis in the brain. Dr Google – the famous Dr Google – told me that there were no survivors after two years from this combination which, as you might imagine, was somewhat sobering news. However, I felt perfectly well and so, ever positive, I found two young expert surgeons who removed the offending tumours with a minimum of fuss.

I then decided I should share this unfolding tragedy with all my friends to at least alert them to my predicament and bravely promise I would achieve a positive outcome with their support.  Well, the outpouring of that support was truly amazing, with prayers from every variety of church and religion ensuring my survival. Thankfully, this positive approach has resulted in no further recurrence to date, now having passed the three-year mark.

Unfortunately, my health drama did not stop there, with a misdiagnosed melanoma successfully excised 18 months ago. While a subsequent clear pathology report indicated a bullet dodged, sadly a terminal stage 4 was discovered in the liver from my follow-up scans a few months later. Bloody hell, I thought, here we go again. No doubt all my friends and family thought exactly the same.

Despite the poor prognosis of being a terminal disease, I still felt perfectly well and decided this was not going to beat me either. So, fortunately for me, a new immunotherapy had burst onto the market offering effective treatment for about 50 per cent of melanoma sufferers. I never even gave a moment’s thought to not being one of those successful responders. So, carefully choosing the one I believed would do the least harm and offer the most likely effective result, I embarked on the intravenous treatment last June.

Perfect blood results and an 80 per cent reduction in the tumour size has been my result to date and so my busy life has not been allowed to miss a beat. I give the most credit to therefore remaining active and positive about my future and persistent in determining and undertaking the right treatment. Of course, good luck may have played a part as well. 

A graduation address is meant to be a dance between youth and wisdom. Wisdom tends to come with experience and sometimes you’ll learn the most about life when faced with the major challenges that confront you along life’s path, as I believe has happened to me. I’ve endeavoured to show you how the application of my three Ps of passion, positivity and persistence has successfully shaped my life and career and perhaps got me through some of those challenges that were before me in recent times. I guarantee you that their application to your professional life will deliver to you similar success, along with the loyalty and trust of your future patients.

So, work hard, be kind to each other, remember to apply the three Ps of passion, positivity and persistence throughout your career and amazing things will happen to you. Go and have an amazing life.