Dr David Briggs AM
Dr David Briggs AM
I have had a long association with UNE both as Alumni and as an academic within the then School of Health. My UNE education included a Master of Health Management with 1st class Honours by research, my topic was ‘models of care in small rural communities’. I subsequently completed a Doctor of Philosophy where my research thesis was ‘the lived experience of health service managers, their perceptions of the health system and the health management role. The outcome of that research was adopted nationally and has become known as the SHAPE Declaration. I continue to hold an Adjunct Professor position in the current Faculty of Medicine and Health at UNE.
I am now in my 56th year of work and professional roles in health and education systems that culminated this year in being recognised as a member of the Order of Australia – AM in the 2020 New Year’s awards. The award of the AM was ‘for significant service to community health management, and to education.’ The latter 22 years of my career until now are in some way connected with my involvement with UNE.
My initial contact with UNE was in the mid-1990s when as a State and subsequently National President of the Australian College of Health Service Executives, the professional body for health services managers I was responsible with others for developing an Aboriginal Health Management training program and gaining Commonwealth government funding for that program in 1997. The program placed Aboriginal trainees in health services while they pursued and obtained a post-graduate tertiary degree in health service management. It was the first program of its type in Australia. This program ran for about ten years and many of its graduates were successful in gaining senior positions in health care organisations in Australia and enriched the composition of health service management. The School of Health, UNE was selected as the provider of a graduate Diploma in health management that the trainees completed during their placements in that program. After I arrived at UNE, I had the opportunity to renew my affiliation with this program by teaching into it.
This has been recognised as a significant achievement at the time and in my view worthy of replicating today. It built on my considerable involvement with local Aboriginal communities in my former role as Chief Executive at Tamworth Base hospital where we created education and employment opportunities and where we were recognised as the first hospital to raise the Aboriginal Flag. I think education and employment and respect for culture remain central to improved health outcomes for Aboriginal people and communities.
My initial contact with tertiary education was in the early 1970s when I obtained a scholarship to undertake a new and ambitious Bachelor of Health Administration by correspondence and some full-time attendance at the University of NSW. I mention this here because it was influential in my seeing my work with NSW Health as a profession not just a job and it gave me confidence and credibility in my subsequent roles. In those early years I was influenced by senior health managers/CE who ran independent public hospitals each with a Board of Directors. They were encouraging and made sure you had opportunity to learn and advance.
There are many stories from that first 30 years where I progressed through to Deputy Chief Executive at the Central Coast, at Gosford and on to Chief Executive at Tamworth Base and to CE of the New England area Health Service. I am mindful that this article is about my UNE affiliations, so I won’t go into detail here. Except to say that in the mid-1990s I became concerned that the increasing role of State health departments in the direct control and management of hospitals started to diminish the previous diversity in how hospitals were managed and it was that diversity from where we did our learning and professional development. In that time in my College role I visited most of the significant countries in the Asia Pacific to meet and engage with senior health systems managers to assess the opportunities for engagement and the potential for across health systems learning. A few years later after I had left the NSW health system and had become a consultant I was approached by the School of Health, UNE to see if I would do some work in the health management program. I agreed to a part time role and in addition to teaching into the local program I was asked to help deliver the UNE program in Hong Kong through the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
In those day we visited Hong Kong each semester and delivered face to face lectures in health management and as a result there are many UNE graduates in Hong Kong. While I visited Hong Kong, I remained engaged with those I had met on that earlier visit and often provided a seminar to them while there teaching, as an extracurricular activity. This engagement saw the establishment of a Hong Kong College of Health Service Executives that became affiliated with the Australian College. I was made a founding Fellow of the Hong Kong College and I still have strong friendships and colleagues and am invited to attend and present in Hong Kong at conferences conducted by the College and the Hong Kong Polytech University to this day.
I continued a part -time role at UNE School of Health from 1998 through to 2011 and in that time completed my studies previously referred to and became Head of the health management program. During that time, I was approached by Phudit Tejativaddha, a medically qualified academic from the Public Health Faculty of Naresuan University, who was coming to Australia to study a Doctor of Management at another university. He was aware of my profile at an international level with the College, the UNE teaching in Hong Kong and my subsequent period as National President of SHAPE, the Society for Health Administration in Education a professional body representing university health management programs across Australia. He decided to enrol in the Doctor of Health Services Management at UNE and I became one of his supervisors.
Phudit was not only a good student but he was exceptionally engaging and skilful in enlisting UNE academics and other health professionals in his passion of both improving rural general practice in Thailand but also bringing to Thailand the concept of health systems management. So, a group of UNE academics and local regional health professionals were engaged in local research education and training in Thailand and, in arranging study tours of Thai doctors to Australia to visit local health services and UNE. These pursuits culminated in Phudit and I organising an inaugural International Health Management Conference in Phitsanulok at Naresuan University Thailand. Our UNE Vice Chancellor Alan Pettigrew and Faculty Dean Victor Minichiello were active participants and contributors to that significant event.
Subsequently I worked with Phudit who established the College of Health Systems Management at Naresuan University. That University awarded me an honorary doctorate in Public Health in recognition of my contribution to the Thailand health system and to Naresuan University. This was awarded to me at a graduation ceremony in Thailand by HRH Princess Maha, Chakri Sirinhorn. Subsequently, Phudit has become the Director of the ASEAN Centre for Health Development at Mahidol University, Bangkok where I hold an Adjunct Professor position and am Honorary Chief Editor of the ASEAN Journal of Health Development. I have recently returned from there in the early Covid virus period and had quarantined and isolated over the past month.
The UNE engagement described above saw an increase in Thai students at UNE with a number enrolled in the DHSM and a couple in our medical program. In addition to Thailand I worked directly in Asia and presented at Conferences across Asia, including Beijing and in the UK and USA under the UNE banner.
The award of the Member of the Order of Australia describes a career in headlines as Leadership through scholarship, community service, the enhancement of healthcare and its management and international promotion of excellence in health services management. Through my UNE affiliation and my other professional national roles, I have travelled the world, published texts, book chapters and journal articles, and have gained many long-term friendships.
In one of my current roles I am a Director and Deputy Chair of the Board of the Hunter New England Central Coast Primary Health Network and am passionate about sustaining and enhancing rural primary healthcare. It is a privilege to again have further engagement with UNE in that capacity and its innovative approach to health professional education and rural health service delivery with the virtual hospital/health service concept.
My reflection on my career is that it would not have been possible without strong family support. Secondly, being a professional requires an expectation that you contribute and give back to your profession and encourage others in their career. Sometimes our professional training and experiences are relatively narrow, and the learning experience needs to be wider and diverse, so I am a great advocate of learning globally while acting locally. I think the current Covid-19 virus pandemic reinforces that view.
Thank you for the opportunity to reflect on aspects of my career that highlight the importance of the UNE connection.
