GP wins top award for ‘global leadership in health’

Over a career spanning more than four decades, Dr Jillann Farmer has established herself as a leading global figure in medicine and health.
 
As a GP by trade, Dr Farmer spent eight years as the United Nations Medical Director from 2012–20, based in New York.
 
Among her long list of high-profile duties, this role saw Dr Farmer managing healthcare for 100,000 personnel, as well as working within the Syrian chemical weapons crisis, the Ebola outbreak in Liberia, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
When she returned to Australia, she became Deputy Director-General for Queensland Health, established the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Clinical Network, and continues to work as an emergency locum GP.
 
It is this impressive resume that saw Dr Farmer awarded a University of Queensland Vice-Chancellor’s Alumni Excellence Award last month, honoured for her global leadership in health.
 
A staunch advocate for fairness and equality, Dr Farmer also shared her story at the Queensland leg of the RACGP’s International Women’s Day event series earlier this year.
 
Below, Dr Farmer offers a firsthand glimpse into her life, career, and global healthcare.
 
Q: What inspired you to pursue the career path you eventually chose?
 
A: ‘I actually have had several career paths – clinical medicine, medical administration and international civil service.
 
I think the unifying theme is the great satisfaction I derive from trying to make people or systems better, particularly for the most disadvantaged.
 
I was raised to have a strong sense of how lucky I was, and that this, when used well, can make such a difference.’


Dr Jillann Farmer visiting a quarantine facility in Liberia during the Ebola outbreak. 

Q: Do you have a favourite quote, motto or piece of advice?
 
A: ‘Be a nuisance where it counts, but don’t be a bore at any time. Be depressed, discouraged, and disappointed at failures and the disheartening effects of ignorance, greed, corruption and bad politics, but never give up’ – Marjory Stoneman Douglas.

Now that name, Marjory Stoneman Douglas may not mean much to an Australian audience, but she was an environmental activist who worked to protect the Florida everglades.
 
People may have heard of the Parkland school in Florida, where there was a terrible mass shooting.
 
It’s actually the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, and I like to imagine her, looking down on the amazing anti-gun activists that rose up out of that trauma, and who seem to be living her legacy of activism and courage.’

Q: Reflecting on your journey to date, what has been your proudest moment?
 
A: ‘When the Secretary General launched the Mental Health Strategy, that in itself was a very proud moment, and it was capped off when he spoke, because he used, largely unchanged, the speech I wrote.’
 
Q: If you could snap your fingers and change one thing about the world, what would it be?
 
A: ‘I’d get us all to see humanity as one group.
 
To have us be as shocked and horrified by the deaths of children abroad as we would be if it was happening in our own backyard. 
 
I shudder every time I hear the phrase “there were no Australian lives lost”, or “no American lives”, as though that makes everything okay. 
 
I wish our hearts would break as much for those far away, because if they did, I think the world would make very different decisions.’
 
The UQ Alumni Award winners are nominated from more than 340,000 alumni around the world, with the 17 winners celebrated at an awards ceremony in Brisbane on 30 October.
 
Dr Jeremy Hunt was also celebrated at the ceremony, named Graduate of the Year.
 
Dr Hunt is a Resident Medical Officer at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and cofounder of The VacSeen Project, a charity providing free preventive healthcare to disadvantaged groups.
 
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