Professor Phillip Carson
Dr Bronwyn Carson
BMBS(GradEntry) ’09, GradCertClinEd ’18
By Kate Holland
Professor Phillip and Dr Bronwyn Carson met in the 70s at a combined student health workers camp. Dr Carson was a second-year student at the relatively new Flinders Medical School and Professor Carson was in his fifth year at the University of Adelaide. Depending on who you speak to, they didn’t really like each other to begin with or were merely slow to start. Regardless of how things began, a common interest in music, medicine, working hard and making a difference led to a beautiful relationship that has resulted in six children, an enduring marriage and two incredibly successful careers.
Both were raised with a backdrop of Christian mission life. Professor Carson was born and raised in Port Adelaide, believing it to be the centre and envy of the world thanks to its football team. His parents also expanded his world view through their interest in Christian world missions. He recalls he and his siblings giving up beds to visitors from PNG, Africa, India and Nepal. Dr Carson spent the first six years of her life in East Arnhem Land, at the Yirrkala Mission, where her family was heavily involved with the local people and culture. From here, her family moved to Adelaide.
Medicine Over Engineering
Influenced by several family friends who were doctors, and encouraged by his GP, Professor Carson chose to study medicine over engineering. A trip overseas defined his career purpose.
“A medical elective at a remote rural hospital in Northern India enlarged my experience of the world and further confirmed my desire to serve people in need, particularly those who were underserved medically,” he says.
“Because I was interested in returning to remote Nepal once qualified, I thought the best preparation would be to train as a procedurally competent GP (now known as a rural generalist). After an intern year in Adelaide, I went to Alice Springs as a junior doctor thinking it would be a good place to get broad hands-on experience and learn how to work cross-culturally. I was right.”
Professor Carson’s move to Alice Springs put Dr Carson’s medical studies, something she had always wanted to do, on hold for 30 years. They were engaged at the time and after a few months apart she deferred her studies to join him. It was a gap she never wasted. Along with raising six children, she completed a Bachelor of Arts, a Bachelor of Music and Masters of Public Health, and worked for five years as a public health researcher. She was also lead editor on the seminal book Social Determinants of Indigenous Health, an experience she lists as one of her most rewarding achievements.
A Life of Service
When Dr Carson did return to study medicine aged 48, it was back at Flinders. Soon after she qualified as a GP, alongside her clinical work she became Director of Training for the Northern Territory (NT) GP training organisation, added a postgraduate diploma of medical education to her qualifications and served on the SA/NT state committee of the RACGP. In 2020, the RACGP honoured her as the SA/NT GP of the year. She then went on to become the inaugural medical director of Doctors Health NT for three years before retiring in January this year. Professor Carson is right when he remarks that she’s had, “a remarkable and inspirational life of service.”
Dr Carson says, “it was a privilege to have been given a second chance at this career and I loved working with people to help them achieve the best health outcomes that they could.”
Given his subsequent high-profile roles, it seems incongruous that Professor Carson experienced career delays of his own – difficulty getting recognised surgical training. Inspired by the long serving NT surgeon John Hawkins, having witnessed how his range of competency had been vital for the wellbeing of the people of Central Australia for 20 years, Professor Carson sought to gain broad surgical skills. He studied for and passed the surgical primary exam at the same time as the Diploma of Obstetrics. However, on applying for basic surgical training back in Adelaide he was told there was no position for him, and that he was not a serious candidate as he had, “left town and married early”.
A role as an orthopaedic registrar in Darwin and six years of gaining valuable experience working as a ‘non-accredited’ surgical trainee and senior registrar in Adelaide and England would follow as well as passing the fellowship exam in Edinburgh. When plans to work in Nepal were thwarted, Professor Carson sought the support of local Adelaide surgeons and was finally recognised by the RACS, then spent a few more years expanding his experience in multiple surgical specialties, passed the Australasian Fellowship and went back to work in Darwin in 1990.
The upward trajectory was swift. After a year he was appointed as Director of Surgery and oversaw departmental growth, the introduction of many new techniques and training levels, and the expansion of an outreach service to remote communities. When Professor Carson relinquished Director duties he was increasingly involved with university and College of Surgeons (RACS) work. With the latter, he became an examiner, Chair of the Court of Examiners, a Council member, Chair of Global Health and then Censor-in-Chief, overseeing all surgical education and training programs in Australia and New Zealand.
The Flinders Connection
Professor Carson became a senior lecturer for Flinders University when it established a clinical school in Darwin in 1996, with students doing their last two years of the new postgraduate medical course in the NT. He was appointed Associate Professor to lead the academic surgical program in 2001. Since retiring from clinical practice in 2021, Phil has been appointed as a Flinders Professorial Fellow.
He says the commitment from Flinders, which expanded to a full medical program in 2011, has been terrific for the Territory, improving the whole medical culture. “Territorians can now train to be doctors entirely in the NT, which has led to higher retention rates for doctors and increased opportunities for Territory kids, mature age and Indigenous Territorians to become doctors,” he says. Although it wasn’t their plan A, Dr and Professor Carson say that living and working in the NT has provided a wonderful life for
them and their children.
“Living among and working with Aboriginal people of the NT is stimulating and challenges many of our comfortable preconceptions. It is a privilege to learn radical new ways of viewing life and country,” Professor Carson says.
Dr Carson concurs and points out that there is always a need for people working in health. “You are never lurking. You’re right at the front and dealing with a diversity of medical needs.”
Passionate about supporting and encouraging NT medical students who want to serve the people of the NT in some ongoing way, they established the Carson Northern Territory Medical Program Scholarship, which provides $5,000 of financial assistance to one student per annum.
That’s not the only reason they established it. What many people don’t know is that two of their children have tragically passed away, and they have a daughter who lives with a serious brain injury and significant disabilities because of a car accident just before her twentieth birthday.
“We are always conscious of the lost potential of those children, of what they might have done. The scholarship was also a way of quietly honouring them,” Dr Carson says.
Thinking about and caring for others is what the Carsons do.