New Executive Dean of Health Sciences at the University of Queensland Professor Peter Brooks is the first to admit he enjoys a challenge.
He also has a vision which includes seeing the medical profession as part of a wider world of health practitioners and universities belonging to the global campus.
As a medical graduate Professor Brook started his career in Hobart, his home since migrating with his parents from England at the age of 10.
'I did a couple of years as a cardiology research fellow at the Royal Hobart Hospital and then decided to go to England to do some postgraduate work,' he said.
On the way he stopped off in Alice Springs for a six-month stint as a locum physician and acting superintendent of the Alice Springs Hospital where he was exposed to the problems associated with Aboriginal health.
Describing his feelings towards the town as an 'unrequited love' Professor Brooks has continued to develop links with the hospital wherever he has worked.
In his previous position as Medicine Faculty chairman at the University of New South Wales he initiated a program which rotated residents and students to the Alice Springs Hospital and this proved 'useful to both parties.'
'Then an opportunity came up in rheumatology in Glasgow where I spent four years and did my MD in clinical pharmacology of anti-rheumatic drugs which really started a major research interest in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and musculo skeletal disease,' he said.
'It has been a burning interest of mine ever since.'
Back in Hobart in 1978, Professor Brooks established the rheumatology unit of the Royal Hobart Hospital and developed research interests with Professor Michael Roberts, now also at the University of Queensland.
After setting up academic rheumatology services at the Flinders University of South Australia, Professor Brooks moved to Sydney to take up Australia's foundation chair of rheumatology at the University of Sydney based at the Royal North Shore Hospital funded by the Arthritis Foundation.
'I set up a professorial unit there over an eight-year period along with an active research unit but unfortunately the challenge tends to go out of a project after five to seven years so I moved to St Vincent's Hospital to work at UNSW where I was professor of medicine and for the past 18 months, chairman of the faculty,' he said.
Professor Brooks said the decision to move to Brisbane and the University was simple. He wanted to run a faculty of health sciences.
'I was at the stage of life where I wanted another challenge. I had worked in four medical schools in Australia, I'd chaired research units, my research was going well - I still hold four NHMRC grants - and help play a role at a national level through membership of a number of awards committees,' he said.
'And of all the tertiary institutions in Australia, this (the University of Queensland), I think, has the greatest challenge. It is certainly one of the biggest in terms of not only its responsibility for medicine, but also dentistry, pharmacy and the rehabilitation sciences.
'Tertiary education and training in the health sciences are changing rapidly. There is enormous pressure on the system to reduce the funds that go into that system and people across the board need to develop ways of proving their cost effectiveness.'
Professor Brooks said the move by the Graduate School of Medicine to a four-year degree was the way of the future.
'I think that developing a new course also gives you the opportunity to look at everything you do including the teaching and research interactions you can provide,' he said.
'And I think that will be part of the fun. Dentistry, pharmacy and rehabilitation sciences are all groups which interact very closely with doctors. We need to get doctors talking to these people at an early stage.'
Professor Brooks said north Queensland also provided an exciting challenge.
'We do have to remember that the University of Queensland has a very active northern clinical school. We have to support that and look at developing that to help retain doctors in northern Queensland.
'The University runs Australia's best rural training school out of Townsville, Cairns and Mt Isa and we need to build on that.'
Professor Brooks said the key to the University's future was its involvement in the global campus.
'We need to be looking at strategic arrangements with universities in the United States, in China, in other parts of Asia and other parts of Australia.'
Outside interests for Professor Brooks are his family, two sons aged seven and 10 and his wife, a respiratory physician.
'We are interested in the theatre when we can get to it but my work leaves little time for anything else apart from family,' he said.
'But I am lucky. I actually really enjoy my work and I am looking forward very much to being here at the University of Queensland.'
For more information contact Professor Brooks (telephone 3365 5103).
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