WEBVTT

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(wistful music)

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- My brothers were very fine athletes.

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I was thought to be a little bit strange in the family

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because I was a bookworm.

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And they always knew it, my elder brothers did,

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but they would say, "Well, what's he do?"

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And Dad said, "Look, he's a bookworm, but he'll come good."

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(laughs) Like some big impediment that I had.

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Not really, I mean he encourages

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by buying me encyclopaedias and all sorts of things.

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I had the two-fold things.

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I had the sport,

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and I had the fanatical desire for academic excellence,

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which, really,

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has been my life.

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It's been a great journey, the rugby journey.

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But it always was feeding into something else.

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It wasn't just it, you know,

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it actually taught you how to discipline yourself,

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and how to concentrate,

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and I think that stands you in good stead in life

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if you use it well.

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A lot of people said I should give up the game,

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that I couldn't do both.

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And I was lucky enough to have a dean, Eric Sight,

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who took me aside and said,

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"Look, I think you can do both," he said, "I'll back you.

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But if you fail an exam, I can't back you."

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So he allowed me to play, and that was the deal:

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that I had to keep passing exams, and pass them well,

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and he'd keep making arrangements

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for me to continue to play my game.

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That was the turning point in my life, which was good.

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I realised that I wanted to do both,

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and to do that I needed to plan,

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and plan well ahead, plan ahead academically,

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plan ahead for the rugby tours.

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And I've used that, that you actually have to try

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and do a couple of things and do them well.

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In life, you have opportunities,

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and you have to risk things, even if you're going to lose.

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It's better to actually give it a go and fail,

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than not to have explored that opportunity at all.

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Ophtalmology had started to appeal to me

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'cause I had an interest in visual arts,

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I had an interest in vision.

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But I always had the drive to do some remote work,

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or third-world work.

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And I could see immediately

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that ophtalmology would allow me to do that.

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And I thought,

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it's a nice thing to make it to your own state.

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And particularly in an area where you were as a child.

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Looking after my teacher, like Mrs. Keeble from Cooktown,

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one of the best teachers I've ever had.

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So that's a lovely thing, to actually belong to something,

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to belong to

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to a part of your country,

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and to make a contribution somewhere along the line.

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And I just think it's just such an extraordinary gift

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to be born into this area of the world.

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It's a fortunate thing,

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to be allowed to make some contribution

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in some way to your own state.

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Joachim and myself have talked about this.

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He was surprised that I knew a bit of art history,

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and we started talking about all these things.

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So we went to and fro, and we tried one photograph,

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then I thought,

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we need to go back and do some more, Joachim,

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because when I think of it,

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my life has

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been more ophtalmology,

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it's been more eye surgery.

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We came in here

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to the operating theatre downstairs on a Saturday.

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And we set up a whole theatre structure.

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And then it was his idea to go into this change-room,

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and that's what our visit here has come out to be.

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I hadn't realised the connection, really.

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That when you go to theatre,

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you're going into a change-room,

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and you go and change your uniform,

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and you become something different to what you were.

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I realised that in sport now, that that's what happens.

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You come to the field, and you're dressed in a blazer.

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You take that blazer off.

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You put on the uniform.

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You run onto the field,

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and you become something different.

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When you operate,

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you're starting to deal with human tissue,

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and it's variable,

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but you have to have this belief that you can go there

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and change things for the better for that person.

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It's an interesting thing.

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It's no wonder that you try to get dressed up

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into some different type of gear,

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and become something different in the operating theatre,

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something better, I hope.

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And you need to go on to some type of zen performance,

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where everything's excluded from your thought.

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And you're looking at

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this moment and this

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time.

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You know, there's a very small space that you're given.

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And if you're in that space,

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you want to change it for the better.

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It's a concentration into smaller space,

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and to try and do that small space well,

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without getting worried about the enormity

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of how big life is, and how ramifications will be,

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that it's there, and it's now.