Professor Christine Phillips AM

A prescription for kindness

Three confronting experiences signpost the remarkable career of Dr Christine Phillips and speak volumes of her personal philosophy on life and community service.

The first occurred at the tender age of 16, when Christine's surgeon father took her to visit the Aboriginal reserve Cummeragunja, on the banks of the Murray River, where he ran a visiting health service. "It was one of the most shocking experiences of my life," she recalls. "The Yorta Yorta people were so impoverished, living in overcrowded houses so close to a thriving, middle-class community. I remained angry about that for a very long time and it made me think about all the things we choose not to see, and led me to think about medicine from a social justice perspective."

The eldest of nine children, Christine considered following in her father's footsteps one of the least imaginative steps she could undertake at 18 years, but ended up enrolling in medicine at the University of Melbourne, where she found the training "arduous and dull". "I couldn't imagine that I would ever enjoy it or be really proficient at it," she says. "But when I got to Royal Darwin Hospital to do my internship I realised that the actual job bore little resemblance to the training, and it was wonderful."

Still, Christine thought she should keep her options open and enrolled in a Graduate Diploma in Continuing Education at UNE. "I wanted to have something else I could do if medicine imploded for me, which I fully expected it to do," she says, "and the timing was great because it gave me a very different way to think about things.

"From Darwin I went to ANU and studied anthropology, public health and got a doctorate in the end, but the thing that set it all off was that Grad Dip. It was a big thing to get down to Armidale from Darwin in those days, but it was really good to meet people who were wildly different from doctors. That UNE training in adult education proved critical for the rest of my career."

The second major event in Christine's life coincided with her graduation - the beginnings of the HIV AIDS crisis. "It was such a horrible virus and there was no treatment available," she says. "The infection rates were high among my circle and some parts of the community were very judgemental. Every clinician had to come to terms with that. To me, not acting with judgement was a fundamental principle.  I later worked quite closely with people with HIV in general practice. Every weekend we would visit them dying in their homes; beautiful young men, loved by their families and friends and partners, dying too early and abjectly."

Christine still works in that same Canberra general practice, which specialises in drug and alcohol medicine, and youth, migrant and complex mental health. Since 2008 she has also been the medical director of the Companion House Medical Service, which provides torture and trauma counselling and medical care for refugees and asylum seekers. There, her impact has been profound, as witnessed by the improved cervical screening, pregnancy care and Hepatitis B treatment. In 2010 she also co-founded the Refugee Health Network of Australia, the peak advisory body to government on health care, and wrote the national standards for health practitioners using interpreters.

"Companion House is the most joyful place to work," Christine says. "You witness survivorship every day, how people break the chains that determined their upbringing, who are optimistic about their future. Many overcome great challenges, and to be a small part of that is a fantastic privilege."

By 2004 Christine had also embarked on university teaching within the ANU Medical school. Today, she is Professor of Social Foundations of Medicine, and Associate Dean, Research (Health Social Science) within the College of Health and Medicine. Having pioneered the integration of social sciences - including dance, music and art - in medical education, she hopes to inform new generations of doctors in unique ways.

"It's a way for clinicians to engage with broader perspectives," Christine says. "Medicine is a fundamentally judgemental career; diagnosing is a process of exercising judgement. But you have to park your moral judgement to be a doctor, to avoid tripping over your own preconceptions and prejudices. By exposing our students to the social sciences, we challenge their perspectives and free them up to think and experience and be in the moment. It's vital for them to know what it feels like when someone they care about dies, what it feels like when they fail or a great injustice occurs. You witness great injustices in medicine daily."

A dedication to supporting some of the most marginalised and vulnerable in society has seen Christine work across the spectrum - in the prison service, with victims of domestic violence,  the homeless and urban poor. "It surprises people to learn there is so much deep urban poverty in the ACT; our housing crisis is the worst of any Australian city," she says. "And evidence shows that any mental health issues among people who are homeless are usually secondary to their homelessness. They are not homeless because they are psychologically unwell; they become psychologically unwell because they are homeless."

The final telling experience in Christine’s life has been working with asylum seekers who have been in long-term detention. “I have now worked in this field long enough to have seen several generations of asylum seekers who have suffered long-term immigration detention, and the impacts upon children, where Australia sadly has more experience than other major refugee resettlement country," she says. "The most profoundly shocking thing for me has been the failure among more Australians to be moved  and outraged by the actions undertaken in our name towards people who have asked for help, as they are entitled to do.”

In her consultancy work, clinical practice or academic life, Christine's efforts are characterised by a deep respect for others and a commitment to equity ("all patients are entitled to the best care available and no-one should be left behind"). She was named a Member of the Order of Australia this year for her "significant services to medicine, medical education and refugee health". "I think it's always important to consider the context in which people live and I believe that kindness really matters," she says.

Congratulations Professor Christine Phillips, AM, one of our 2020 UNE Distinguished Alumni Award winners.