Dr Bruce Robinson is a doctor, researcher and leader who staunchly believes in seeking to make a difference in the lives of others – including fathers. He knows that if dads do a good job with their kids, the world will be better off.
By Ara Jansen
Dr Bruce Robinson is involved in so many professional projects, one look at his email signature is dizzying.
The lung specialist with nine sets of letters after his name is a Professor of Medicine at UWA, a respiratory physician at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and a senior investigator at the National Centre for Asbestos Related Diseases. He’s also the Director of the Early Digital and Drug Intervention for COVID-19 Program and has been a regular volunteer doctor in natural disaster zones.
Somehow the list feels a little inadequate for all the work he has done, but what is clearly important is a deep sense of responsibility to make the world a better place.
“When you look at all the things I do at once, it looks like a lot,” says Bruce. “It makes me sound better than I am. In any case it’s not just me, there’s always a team of wonderful people working alongside me. But it is also true to say that I often hit a wall and run out of steam. I’m not an energiser bunny. My operating principle is that if I think I can make a difference, I go for it. If I can’t, I don’t do it.
“I push on through the inevitable tiredness, disappointment and disillusionment that occurs when you do those sorts of things. If the opportunity to make a difference is great, I push on, helped by the encouraging people around me – I get carried along by their enthusiasm.”
Any opportunity to make a difference, he says, is a like a coin – the flipside is the responsibility to stick with things and see them through. They go hand in hand.
On the lengthy list of achievements, perhaps the work which speaks best to his heart is The Fathering Project, which he founded in 2013 and has now become a successful national organisation with a footprint in many cities and regions around Australia.
Bruce is joined on the board by notable Perth locals including co-founder of the Margaret River Chocolate Factory Martin Black, former federal MP Tim Hammond, businessman Craig Heatley (PwC) and a number of corporate leaders in the eastern states, including chairman Geoff Lloyd.
Being dad
The aim of the project is to help men understand just how important their role as a father is, and to promote positive and healthy relationships between fathers and children. Its mission is to educate, connect and empower fathers and father figures to prevent long-term social, emotional and cognitive difficulties and create the conditions for children to thrive.
Schools, workplaces and communities across the country now use its prevention and intervention programs.
The Fathering Project was a joyful accident which came out of Bruce’s medical work almost two decades ago.
“As a lung specialist, I have to break the bad news to people who are going to die. I also take the journey with them and help them along the way. One of the biggest regrets I heard from men was not spending enough time with their kids and that they couldn’t get that time back again.”
In response, Bruce wrote a book called Fathering from the Fast Lane in 2001. It offered practical ideas for busy dads around how to rearrange their lives so they could do meaningful things with their kids and how to make the best use of their limited time.
“I didn’t think much more about it, but it turned into a bestseller and now we have this organisation which is active in hundreds of schools, workplaces and community groups and a social media reach of over
one million.”
Lots of this work continues to be done through local schools – many of them have their own Facebook pages and sections on the school website for information and also on how to join the school’s dads’ group.
Powerful force
“The Fathering Project has been dubbed by a former deputy Prime Minister as ‘the most powerful force in Australia at the moment to change the future of our kids’. When you examine the data and talk to experts about crime, teen depression, bullying or drug and alcohol abuse, while it doesn’t guarantee to protect kids completely, a good dad is the most powerful missing force to reduce these risks in kids.”
Bruce says the statistics tell us that if children have a good relationship with their fathers, there would be a 50% reduction in drug and alcohol abuse, 30% reduction in teen depression and suicide and a 95% reduction in crime.
“Dads can help teach their kids integrity and respect for others and help kids feel that they are worthy. They also demonstrate those values in how they treat their mum.”
Despite being so busy, Bruce has always had a life outside of medicine. Football has been a large part of his life starting at Bassendean, then the University Football Club, where he is a life member. From player to coach and mentor, among other things he’s co-patron of the Swan Districts Football Club and is active in their community programs for at-risk children.
“I’ve always competed or watched AFL. It’s a big part of my life. I love it and it has taught me a lot about life, leadership, teamwork and how to handle disappointment and defeat.”
His life as a “hard-nosed, analytical scientist” has existed, since university days, alongside a journey of faith. As a Christian he sees life not as a freeway but a meandering route through hills and valleys, always offering an opportunity to learn, change and grow, no matter what your age. At 72, Bruce says he’s surprised that he’s still capable of enormous personal growth.
What is success?
When he was a young doctor, his faith caused him to recalibrate his definition of success. His measure of success was not academic, financial, nor by validation, but by whether or not he had made a difference with the opportunities and abilities he had been given.
We have a social and moral responsibility, he says, to use our hearts and minds to solve problems, like cures for certain types of cancer such as asbestos-induced cancer and share those treatments the world.
Bruce is married with three adult children (and a healthy clutch of grandchildren). His work with The Fathering Project taught him a few lessons to take home and apply as a dad and a now-granddad.
“I have always invested in family. It’s the most important part of my life – by far. My heart still skips a beat when I see the kids walking up our garden path. Occasionally I lost sight of that and had gotten too sucked in by work. Fortunately, I had influences in life which allowed for rapid course-correction. My big lesson has been one of balance and investment – in being there for them, loving them independent of performance and helping each child appreciate just how special and unique they are.
“As a father I wish I had done some things differently,” he admits. “I would get too focused on what I was doing and lost the capacity at times to focus on my kids and wife. The Fathering Project helped me and has been a source of continual reflection.
“I got a good early kick in the bum about this when my oldest son was just two-years old. I was working in the US and I heard a speaker talk about fathering, not expecting much. But I was rivetted. He was talking good, logical sense, offering useful strategies. I became a better dad from then on, for which I am grateful.
“That experience also caused me to reflect on my own dad, who had some drinking issues, was a chain smoker and experienced severe mid-life depression. But he was also a good dad. He spent time with us and was happy to have man-to-man discussions with my brother and I about things like sex and respect for women.
“Despite his working-class background and personal problems, he loved his kids and worked hard to be a good dad. I was grateful to have him rather than an absent or distant dad.”
Unsaid power
After his father died of a heart attack aged 66, Bruce found the letter he had written to him telling him what a good dad he had been. He was brought to tears to see it had been obviously read many times, despite his dad ever mentioning it.
Alongside numerous prestigious medical and research awards, in 2013 Bruce was named Western Australian of the Year and received an Order of Australia for his service to community. The next year he was the WA finalist for Australian of the Year.
While he’s thankful for all the awards he’s received, they don’t matter as much as the things he does to try to make a difference.
“Authenticity is important to me. When I talk to groups or media, I don’t think about how I want them to see me, but I speak from the heart, letting the chips fall where they may. I just try to be honest and say what I really feel.”
Bruce has noticed that many of the people he meets, including doctors who look successful from the outside, are living hollow lives – they look like chocolate on the outside but inside they are hollow. Instead, he says we should seek what he calls a “Caramello life” – it’s chocolate on the outside but inside there is a rich golden core.
That rich golden core might include honest, close, caring relationships with partners, kids and friends, sacrificial service to those in need and attention to personal wellbeing. This includes health and genuine self-awareness.
“It’s easy to get trapped by overwork in medicine because it attracts people with good hearts and causes so many people to react to challenges out of kindness. It’s our biggest strength. We also have the temptation of making money or getting recognition for our medical work, leadership or research.
“The question remains, if you are working long hours, what are you losing out on? Is it quality and quantity time with your kids?”
Over the years Bruce has travelled to some 40 countries for work, holidays and humanitarian reasons but he’s grateful to have been born and living in WA. His recent camping trip into the North West further entrenched his love for the state.
“It’s a beautiful place and a great place to raise kids. When I finished my doctorate in Washington, I was offered jobs in the US and UK, but we came back here to raise our kids. I’m very grateful for the opportunities I’ve had here.”
Born and raised in the then factory suburb of Bassendean, Bruce has friends dating back 65 years and they still get together regularly. He describes his childhood as a Tom Sawyer experience – very free: hanging out with those friends, riding bikes, playing in the river, getting into trouble and exploring their neighbourhood bushland.
In the beginning
“I think that growing up in a working-class environment has helped me a lot when talking to dads. I’m comfortable talking to anyone, including blue collar workers, because I grew up similarly to them. Most people find that talking to a room full of men is tough, but I love it.
“I’m not a natural but I spent so much time as a football coach that I learnt how to do it. I can now eyeball them and know how their brains work. I feel comfortable doing that.”
Bruce’s ancestors were Swan River colony pioneers and he believes Western Australia is and can continue to be a state of the sort of wild audaciousness that saw the pioneers, as well as modern refugees, get on boats and courageously seek a new life. He says this entrepreneurial attitude will not only help generate new, big ideas in medical research, which can take us beyond the resources boom, but also in the arts, science, engineering and technology.
“WA can be a hub for an audacious future, not just be an outpost. For example, in my field of medical research, we want to discover new things and become the hub for treatments and research that flow from them. People would come here because WA has bold ideas, courageous funders, dedicated talented people and are succeeding.”
https://thefatheringproject.org/