In this series, I meet extraordinary Australians...
This is what I do. This is who I am.
It's so exciting to be here.
(LAUGHS)
..who tell me their fascinating stories...
It was like someone had just given me gold.
..while I paint their portrait.
Like, I'd sleep with my bat as a kid.
My challenge is to capture their character...
That's not what you've got the power of the microphone to do.
..and put it on the canvas.
I was born this colour for a reason.
The portrait is theirs to keep, so I want them to like it.
Oh, my God! Heavens above.
Oh, my God! Wow!
Gee! That's incredible!
Wow! Oh, my God.
She's hot! (LAUGHS)
Welcome to Anh's Brush With Fame.
Professor Gordian Fulde has spent 35 years
at the front line of emergency medicine...
..as the longest serving director of emergency
in one of Australia's busiest hospitals.
Passionate about the state of our nation's health,
Gordian, from his front-row seat, has become a leading voice
against alcohol-fuelled violence in our community.
(SIREN WAILS)
GORDIAN: Once I got this fabulous invitation, I did my homework.
He is so talented, and his portraits, every last one of them,
I think are just topnotch.
I think I'm very lucky that anybody would take the time,
let alone such a talented person like Anh, do it.
Gordian is one of our great medical minds.
He quite literally wrote the book on emergency medicine,
but he's also chosen to stay right in the thick of it.
I can't begin to imagine the scope of what he has seen in his long career.
His face is full of character,
and I'm looking forward to capturing that on the canvas today.
Gordian. So great to have you on the show.
What an honour. I mean, this is unbelievably fantastic.
It's an honour for me. Take a seat. Thank you.
This is, uh...
I have so much respect for emergency doctors, Gordian.
What type of personality puts their hand up for such a job?
Well, it's the A-type personality -
that's the ambulance people, the Triple 0 people.
They're people who want to get things done.
If something has gone wrong badly, you want somebody there who...
..has the knowledge, expertise, they can make a decision now.
Wow. And that's you.
I don't know. I seem to have fooled them for at least three decades.
(LAUGHS)
Let's go right back to your childhood.
Your father was a surgeon in the German army in World War II.
Yes. I'm from German background.
Yes.
And my father, he saw all the horribleness of, you know,
what happens to human beings in wars, which is...
We don't seem to have learnt much from there.
And one of the reasons the present Fuldes came to Australia
is that my dad had seen what the Russian Front was,
and, like a lot of Europe, was worried
that Russia was gonna come over and take over Germany
and things like that.
And so that's how they made the brave decision to come to Australia.
And when your family arrived in Australia,
your father practised as a doctor?
Yeah, he was very lucky in that he was one of the first doctors
who, after a whole lot of scrutiny and interviews,
was allowed to practise as a doctor - got the licence -
whereas many other immigrants ended up having to do very menial jobs
where they'd been, you know, quite talented professionals before that.
Your father had a practice overlooking Bondi Beach.
Is that right? And it's still there.
And what he used to do -
take the two boys, my brother and myself, along the beach,
and when a patient came,
Mum would hang a white towel out of the top window,
and Dad would do a U-turn and come back and, uh...
You know, this is the early '50s, uh... and things, so...
To treat a patient?
It was a different world. Yep.
But being German in postwar Australia meant also encountering prejudice,
something a school-age Gordian and his brother, Lothar,
faced for the first time.
Seeing we came to Australia after the war,
there were also a lot of, uh, surviving Jewish people,
and... but... so, at school, we got really picked on.
Brought out the good side of human beings too,
because, strangely, there were a group... or people would defend us.
You know how in school, all-boys schools, they sort of -
you know, girls' school too - get up into groups?
But I remember I couldn't quite work it out.
And even some of the teachers hated my guts
just on the basis that I was a German.
When you're a young kid,
you really - in a good way - probably don't understand it
and you just work around it.
And in some ways, it makes you what you are.
Why did you want to become a doctor?
As a kid, I was a very severely ill asthmatic, right?
So I was exposed to medicine.
So I think it was a combination of things -
being sick, seeing what people did for me,
doctors and nurses, and all that sort of stuff.
Gordian's calling saw him studying medicine at Sydney University
and training in general surgery
before treading a well-worn path of surgical trainees to the UK
to complete his exams.
When he returned, he fell in love with medical student Lesley.
In time, they would marry and have two daughters,
who'd also go on to become doctors.
But in 1980, a job as a staff specialist surgeon
at Sydney's Sutherland Hospital
would change the course of his career.
There were GPs and nurses in Casualty,
and if a surgeon was required,
then a surgeon would come down from upstairs or somewhere else.
But you kind of changed that.
The tradition used to be the last surgeon on the staff
had to look after the... that horrible place called CAS.
(SIRENS WAIL)
It was a place where you didn't want to be, it was disorganised,
and it was the last person out of the room had to look after it.
It was totally... Chaotic and...
Chaotic, and it really was not in the patients' interest.
And, uh, I learned to look after it.
I fell in love with what emergency medicine, casualty, was.
So you're one of the founding fathers
of creating emergency medicine as a specialty in itself.
Is that correct? Absolutely.
You even wrote the emergency medicine textbook.
(CHUCKLES) I wrote one of them.
(LAUGHS) It was very, very successful.
But it's a small book where you can merely have it nearby,
where you can quickly make a reference and do the right thing
by whatever comes to you.
As the first ever candidate to pass
the new accident and emergency specialty exams,
in 1983 Gordian was appointed director of emergency
at St Vincent's Hospital
in Sydney's notorious red-light precinct, Darlinghurst,
a position he would hold for the next three decades.
St Vincent's asked me to come, look after the emergency department
because the culture and the mission of the nuns,
it was a priority.
This is important - that the sick, the disadvantaged,
people who... whatever they've done, maybe they got drunk
or having heart attacks,
it's really important to the nuns they get looked after.
And they could see a mile away
that they weren't being looked after as well as they could be.
And it was tough,
because it was chaos and there was no structure to it.
St Vincent's is right in the middle of...
There's, you know, Kings Cross, Oxford Street.
There's a lot of action.
The nuns put the hospital in a really fabulous place,
and so we have the stranglehold on the homeless people,
we have a stranglehold on mental health,
because it all seems to come into the centre of the city,
and as you say, all the bad habits of mankind that you can buy or do
happens around us.
But at the same time, we drain the eastern suburbs -
you know, the Murdochs, the Packers,
some really rich, entitled, sometimes arrogant people.
Right? And the... (LAUGHS)
Oh, you know, it's part of the game. Mmm.
They come in and they expect this now,
they want the world's best this and this now,
for maybe something trivial.
It's part of the spectrum of what you do.
You've got to cope with that.
How intense does it get?
It tops it.
I mean, if you have a person die in front of your eyes,
I defy nearly anything more intense.
And that's not just the patient,
it's the relatives, the staff, and everything else,
and it is a...
It's just incredibly demanding.
I've been on a plane a few times where they say, you know,
"Is there a doctor on the plane?"
Are you that guy that's sort of, "Yes, I am here"?
Or do you sort of go, "Oh, is there another guy?
"If not, I'll have to do it"?
I think there's total moral duty, right?
But the thing is, on the plane, there's laws -
if you book as a doctor, you have to respond.
Right. I stop at car accidents.
You know, this is like driving at night
and I came across this really bad accident
in one of the towns down south,
where a refrigerated truck and a sports car had come to bad grief.
And there was gases coming from it and all the thing.
The headlights are on, the engine's still running.
This guy was in big trouble.
They actually had to cut the top off with the jaws of life,
top of the car... sports car off, to get the patient out.
It was a big, big deal. I thought he was done and dusted.
Ambulance was already there.
And the ambo was there by himself.
He took one look at me and he said, "Gordian, thank God you're here."
(LAUGHS) 'Cause he had worked at Paddington.
Right? Yep.
And the guy was in a bad way, had a really bad head injury.
Had to call in the helicopter.
They flew him to St George, all that sort of thing.
And I'm still on Christmas cards with him and his wife.
He did well. Against all odds, he did well.
You once said that every doctor has a few patients that stay with them.
Do you have those patients? Of course I do.
It's the patient who is still conscious,
relating to you as a human being,
who then dies in front of your eyes
in spite of everything you can do for them.
And I remember this girl who was hit by a car...
..crying for her mother, as a child would do.
And I can absolutely replay it in my head anytime.
And that was sad.
In some ways, you could say I haven't got over her yet.
'Cause...
..it's the last thing you want.
A nice girl...
Yeah, it's just... it...
Yeah, it's just horrible.
Yeah. And the thing is...
..that's life. Life is also death.
How many hours would you work in a big week?
In the bad old days, you know,
we'd work 100-hour weeks no problem at all.
Which was wrong. Entirely wrong. 'Cause your judgement, all that.
Now we have rules that you can only work so...
..well, for the junior staff, so many hours.
'Cause you're not gonna make the right decision.
You can't fly a plane for three days at a time.
It's wrong. My gosh. Yeah.
How do you get through it, Gordian?
You know, all that intensity - how do you get through it?
I'm an armchair philosopher. I think about things.
And I'm surrounded by absolutely fabulous family
and fabulous dogs.
And I love nature.
Gordian has come a long way
since his migrant beginnings in postwar Australia,
becoming not just a participant in Australian society
but a change-maker.
He has an innate integrity and a lovely gentleness.
I want to capture these qualities.
Talk to me about that period in the '80s and '90s
where HIV was a really scary...
I mean, still is but not like it was. Grim Reaper.
The Grim Reaper ads on TV, yeah.
Basically, it was a fear of the unknown.
We had this thing and it was... it was a killer.
We had nothing against it and we didn't really understand it.
Now, thank heavens, it's, uh... there's control.
People can expect to live with it.
There's lots of medications and things like that.
But there for a while, it was scary.
I mean, if you did... as a health care worker...
Yes.
..and you were dealing with HIV-positive people
and you got a needle stick -
it's easy, there's lots of sharp things
in emergency departments and operating theatres -
you were worried.
I mean, I had a police officer who got blood on them
and came all the way to St Vincent's
because he was seriously, seriously convinced he was gonna die.
Mmm. It was that scary.
And there... the SARS is the best example today.
SARS. Yep. Yeah?
SARS is very real. You know, they've got the...
From Canada, you know, doctors and nurses were dying, big-time,
from minimal contact, and quickly.
But that's part of medicine.
Sorry, you're exposed to things you don't know,
and doctors and nurses do die from bugs and diseases
that they catch off their patients through no fault of their own.
The first thing I do when I get home from work is I give my kids a cuddle.
Does that ever play on your mind
if you've treated someone with SARS that day, you know?
Yes. But you... you wash your hands twice and things like that.
(LAUGHS) So, you know, really...
What fascinates me, Gordian, is the fact
that certain days of the year, you're busier for different reasons.
Yes. You have professional tradesmen...
..on Friday afternoons,
who have been good at their trade for a long time,
getting hand injuries,
and hands are one of those areas
where a small injury can end up with a bad result, right?
Because it's such a complex structure.
It makes us what we are - human beings.
And the reason they get into trouble on Friday afternoons -
they want to finish the job.
Mmm. And so they take a chance.
You know, people don't use the safety cover on a saw,
on a circular saw or whatever.
They're rushing. They want to get home!
Yes, but also, they want to get the job done
because they've got another job they're starting on Monday.
With the hospital located in the epicentre
of Sydney's nightclub district,
the greatest challenges for Gordian's emergency department
are drugs, alcohol and violence.
In 2012,
18-year-old Thomas Kelly is brought in because of an unprovoked attack.
Can you take me back there?
(SIGHS SHAKILY)
How horrible was that? Everything about it, right?
Because in a nutshell,
you have something that should never have happened.
REPORTER: A stranger approached
and, unprovoked, punched Thomas Kelly in the face.
He hit the ground hard.
A young boy... going out, and basically...
..for no reason, gets punched, head injury.
And that's the thing - to see somebody
who then becomes brain dead and dies and is so young,
it is like a black cloud.
Profoundly moved by the senseless death of Thomas Kelly,
Gordian became a campaigner for change
to alcohol and licensing laws
in the hospital's local area of Kings Cross.
(WOMAN SHOUTS)
And then four years later,
Tom's brother Stuart takes his own life.
Stuart was not in a good place.
A major factor was the kickback by society
that he'd given a talk supporting a change in regulations.
Australia is an alcoholic.
We need to rethink the way we drink.
He wasn't a crusader or anything like that,
and, basically, certain elements at university and things like that
made his life miserable.
It's impossibly difficult to lose one son, but then to lose two.
How have they coped with it?
One would destroy most people, let alone both.
Mmm. (SIGHS)
I really... despair
at what they have gone through and still go through,
and all they're trying to do now... and... is... is...
We have a sort of, like, a... a saying -
if we can help one patient not do it again, or whatever,
that's a victory, great.
Alright?
But on the kickback
and nastiness that the Kellys still experience,
when they're not trying to do anything
but to help it not happen again,
is mind-blowing.
And remember, the lockout laws came from Newcastle,
where the publicans, the police, the community, all got together.
It's an Australian model.
We don't want people totally out of control on the streets,
drunk as skunks,
beating up the people who are innocently going their way.
So, it has saved so many lives, so many head injuries,
so many orbital fractures - undisputed,
and there hasn't been spillover, so, yes! Right?
My department does not see, hasn't seen anybody die,
a serious head injury,
and I mean, wow!
Isn't that what we want? Yeah.
Saving lives has been Gordian's number one priority
his whole working life.
But back in 1978, when he was just a trainee,
there was one precious life he knew he couldn't save.
Were you there when your father passed?
Oh!
I... It was one of the big moments of my life.
Uh, a very close family.
Spent a lot of time with Dad as we got older and things like that.
We'd had long talks about life, dying, whatever,
all that sort of thing.
And my dad - very strict routine.
And he used to go swimming Monday, Wednesday, Friday,
and he was in the pool
and we knew he had an aortic aneurysm.
That's the big vessel in the body
which expands and then eventually will burst.
And it burst.
Uh, and only he and I were there.
I fished him out of the pool,
and I remember to this day, the ambulance officers came, right?
And they said... they had the injection with adrenaline
to put into the heart,
and they asked me, "Do you want us to do this?"
And having talked with Dad, and I remember so clearly saying, "No."
And then...
..I had to go and say it to my mother - "Dad's dead!"
(SOBS) That was tough.
'Cause she'd seen us drive off.
I'd gone home, right, and I'd picked up Dad, as a routine,
and Mum never got over it.
To have to tell your mum that...
I'm my mother's son.
After 35 years in the job,
in March 2018, Gordian announced his retirement,
making him the longest serving director of an emergency department
in Australia.
Are you gonna miss it?
Of course I miss it.
The family, the people you work with,
I really, really loved going into my department,
the people you work with, you laugh, cry.
Uh... it's a team.
'Cause the adversity, the stress, and as I said,
unless you pull together and look after each other,
you can't cut it.
And being such a stressful environment,
really heavy-duty sick, trauma come in all the time,
and, yes, I miss that intensity,
but on the other hand, people are telling me -
I've been off for a couple of months now at least -
they say I'm looking a lot better.
(LAUGHS) I'm looking more relaxed.
So, I mean, there's a trade-off.
How much do you think that stress taxes your own body?
Since I've stopped at St Vincent's,
my blood pressure pills have gone down.
My wife says I'm nicer.
(BOTH LAUGH)
Uh... etc, etc, etc. Oh, yeah.
And like I said, that's... you're in full bore.
You know, the rev counter's in the red.
Uh... and, uh... yeah.
Do you ever see that as a sacrifice, or is it just that's what you do?
I see it as a sacrifice, which I'd more than happy do again.
That's very admirable. (CHUCKLES)
For his distinguished service to emergency medicine
and as a community advocate for public health,
Gordian was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2017.
You've seen so much life AND so much death.
What is it to live a good life?
To lead a good life is very, very simple,
and it's so missing -
is to be nicer to the people around you,
and other things around you -
animals, plants, all that thing, but to each other.
We so don't do that, and it's getting worse all the time.
My mum always just says, "Be nice.
"Be generous." That's all. It's simple.
"Be kind." Yeah. Say "thank you", "please".
Well, thank you for what you do. Oh! I don't do anything alone.
Oh, it's been such a joy talking to you today, Gordian.
Well, I think... Thank you.
(CHUCKLES) I've been so entrenched in the story,
I'm gonna need a little while more to finish this off.
So we're gonna take a little break, and then I'll bring you back
and I'll show you the Dr Gordian Fulde.
(LAUGHS) I look forward to it.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
What an amazing experience.
I feel in some ways drained,
because he is so good and so charming and talented.
He really can get inside you.
I've done a fair few interviews in my life,
but I know that Anh has the gift of drilling down to the inner sanctum.
Gordian Fulde is a unique character with a passion for helping people.
He's the first to point out how lucky he has been
for the love and support of his family.
And he's built a long career on the back of hard work
and his strong sense of making a difference in the world.
I think I'm finished. I hope he likes it.
Come on back, Gordian.
(LAUGHS)
It's been fascinating chatting to you today.
Thank you so much for coming on the show.
You are so talented,
and I knew before I came here you were gonna dive deep
into places where people normally don't get to go.
But thank you. It was terrific.
You have a lovely integrity about you, and a kindness,
and so I wanted to capture those two elements in the eyes.
And so, I want you to close your eyes now.
(LAUGHS)
Don't open them till I tell you.
Right, not yet.
Alright, Gordian, go for it.
Wow.
That's somebody else.
He's much younger. Good-looking.
No, that's fantastic.
You nailed it. Thank you.
Maybe I've taken a year or two off, but, you know...
Doesn't hurt.
Can you see the gravitas in the painting?
Yeah, serious, I'm...
You know, Anh, if I look at that,
I can see myself thinking.
That's cool. You're very, very talented. Thank you.
Thank you so much for coming on the show today.
The honour is mine. Thank you.
There you go! (BOTH LAUGH)
Cam on. (LAUGHS)
You can see yourself in there.
I'm thinking, and it's a really fabulous connect.
How do you describe something which is a unique experience
which will stay with you the rest of your life?
Gordian Fulde has left a great legacy in Australian medicine
that sees lives being saved long after he's hung up his stethoscope.
What an amazing man.
Next time, a groundbreaking musician and voice of social justice.
Archie Roach has survived a life of highs and lows.
You don't see yourself as different until somebody points it out to you.
This portrait needs to reflect his gentle wisdom.
(CHUCKLES) Whoa! Gee!