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Chapter 1: What was Richard Scolyer's journey with brain cancer?
Former Australian of the Year Richard Scolia passed away on Sunday night, aged 59. The aggressive brain cancer that Richard had been fighting with experimental immunotherapy for two years returned in March last year. I spoke with Richard for Conversations in late 2024. He was so lovely, humble but determined and full of gratitude to his family and medical colleagues.
A truly remarkable Australian. And we're bringing you that conversation again today.
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When Richard Scolia and his friend and colleague Georgina Long were announced as Joint 2024 Australian of the Year, Richard took to the stage in Canberra and said this in his acceptance speech. I stand here tonight as a terminal brain cancer patient. I'm only 57. I don't want to die.
Just 10 months earlier, Richard had gone from being one of the world's leading melanoma researchers and pathologists to a cancer patient himself. After collapsing in a hotel room in Poland, a golf ball-sized tumour was discovered in his brain. And at the time, the prognosis was dire.
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Chapter 2: How did Richard's childhood influence his resilience?
It was likely that Richard would be dead within a matter of months. But then Georgina suggested that they try using the radical approach the team had pioneered to melanoma treatment on the cancer growing inside Richard's brain. His new memoir is called Brainstorm. Hi, Richard.
Hi, Sarah. Lovely to chat to you.
Lovely to have you here in many ways. What do you remember about standing on stage that night at the Australia Day Awards? What was going through your head and your heart?
Absolutely shocked that we won the award. It was a great week, actually, being in Canberra and meeting other state winners of the Australian of the Year Awards. And they're incredible people who have achieved amazing things and helped the community in very, very admirable ways. So it was a fun week. And to be honest...
I thought all of them were deserving to be winners and we certainly didn't expect to win.
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Chapter 3: What groundbreaking research did Richard Scolyer contribute to melanoma treatment?
In fact, we were pretty terrible about preparing our speech.
Well, how long in advance had you and Georgina worked out that speech?
Well, just the afternoon of the presentation. We did it twice and on the third time said, we're not going to win it. Let's forget it. Yeah. But anyway, yeah, it was obviously a great thrill.
But also for us, we might be the heads of Melanoma Institute Australia, but the truth is it's an amazing team of people that have worked together as a team to really achieve some tremendous things that have helped patients in melanoma especially, but in many other cancers too.
This big national stage is a long way from your childhood in Launceston. Your dad was a keen photographer when you were growing up, Richard. What kind of images are in the Scalia family albums?
They range from everything. In fact, the kids, my kids have seen some of the photos and there's one, it's a little embarrassing, but there's one, apparently when I went to the toilet, I'd sit the wrong way around. So I was facing the toilet. So they're asking me, are you going to put that one in your book?
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of immunotherapy in cancer treatment?
Mum and dad were very much into the incredible wilderness areas in Tasmania and took us on many walks through different national parks. Camping holidays were on the agenda every year. having great fun with friends and relatives doing these things. In fact, when Lake Pedder was planned to be flooded to build this dam called the Gordon Dam, they were very much against that.
So I remember seeing photos when they'd flown in on little planes to have a look at it and show they're protesting about it. But just basically everything about our lives growing up. My dad was fantastic at chronologically taking the photos and then putting them in albums. So great to reminisce.
Explain to me the role that the Bridge North Parrots have played in your family.
Well, Bridge North is a town north of Launceston and my dad actually grew up on a farm that overlooks the football ground and they have a football club. They had it back then and I think it was formed about that time when dad was born and the Scovia family has been a big part of it.
Are you allowed to play on that team if you're not a member of the Scalia family?
Well, I was actually there at... They asked me to be their number one ticket holder earlier this year and I went to a function there and they had a lot of photos of previous teams and celebratory pictures of victories they'd had. But there was one picture that showed that...
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Chapter 5: How did Richard's diagnosis change his perspective on life?
Out of the 20 teams, there's like seven Scolias, five Lacks and five Hortons, I think the other family was called, but basically a small group of people and, yeah, they still play there and love their football. I actually never played for Bridge North. I played AFL football at school and then when I was down at university.
But when I was on holidays, my parents lived not that far from Bridge North, so I'd go and train with them, yeah, each time during the holidays.
Maybe you can make a senior team. You never know.
I don't know about now.
How competitive were you as a kid?
I don't know if I had that much ability to do a lot of things, but yeah, I definitely had determination in my personality. In some ways, I feel a little bit bad for my brother. He was a much more talented sports person than I was. And My dad had to take us for a kick at the football or play cricket. And maybe I was a bit sulky too, but if things didn't go my way, I'd get upset.
And I remember dad and Mark being kinder to me than perhaps they needed to be.
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Chapter 6: What were the challenges Richard faced during his treatment?
Tell me about, Richard, what happened in your family with your mum's health when you were just four or so.
Yeah, that was a tough time, Sarah. Mum was a school teacher and she'd gone on some oral contraceptives just after they came out. The local doctor prescribed the new oral contraceptives and they had high levels of estrogen and estrogen spores your blood to have a high risk of developing blood clots. And people didn't know this at the time, but
Mum ended up having three strokes and I don't know if it was the last or the second one but I remember being at home with my brother and she was sitting at the table and couldn't talk properly, collapsed to the ground and couldn't move one side of her body so... My brother ran to the next door neighbour's place and they called an ambulance and the ambulance came and took mum into hospital.
And then after that, mum and dad went to Melbourne and I think spent a week there. Then they came home. And it was a tough, tough period. And in the end, she ended up spending six months in Hobart. And Dad had to go back to work, but was obviously going back and forward. My brother was at school, so he lived with one of the many, many relatives that we had in Hobart.
in Riverside and I'd stayed on a farm with an uncle and auntie for six months and they didn't have any children who were living at home. Yeah, so it was a tough period.
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Chapter 7: How did Richard and his family cope with the emotional impact of his illness?
What do you remember about living on that farm? It sounds quite isolated to be there as a little kid with, I guess, an older couple.
Well, I remember doing things on the farm. I remember my auntie being particularly close and kind to me. The farmer was a farmer, a tough guy who'd let me drive on his tractor sometime. I remember when they're shearing sheep to take off their woolen coats. So they're both nice to me, but I think like any couple, people have fights, and I remember being scared when that would happen.
I remember that. I remember there's guns around. I'd hide underneath the table when there was a fight on. And, yeah, I never really thought about it until I've become ill with brain cancer. But people have explained to me that your childhood and how you go through things, and it shapes in part who you become as an adult.
And it seems likely some of the things that happened as a kid has had an impact on me and perhaps... made me to be a more determined person and when there's issues at times I'll put my head in the sand over them and in some ways it's helped me.
I seem comfortable in, depending on what it is, but pushing things to the side and concentrating on what's most important that what you're trying to achieve.
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Chapter 8: What legacy does Richard Scolyer leave behind in cancer research?
So yeah, I don't know if that's... I'm told by experts that it is. Can I just add one extra thing to what we're talking about, Sarah? We talked about Bridge North. That farm's just a bit on from Bridge North. And whenever I go back to Tasmania now, I love riding bikes on the open roads and I've got a great mate there, Jim Finlay.
And we'd often go and do this cycle of 100 Ks and we'd go past Bridge North football ground, the farm where my dad grew up, that farm that I lived on when mum was sick and many other relatives' places. And yeah, poor Jim gets sick of me pointing out and telling him stories about different memories I've got of my time living in that area.
When you moved back home with your mum and your dad and your brother, you were reunited. Did your mum have a different fragility to her? Did life at home feel different after she'd had that period of ill health?
Yeah, it certainly did, Sarah. Um... It was tough for her because she was stuck in bed a lot of the time and she'd had trouble getting out, even going to the toilet. She had a... I remember a squash ball that she would squeeze to try and get some strength back in her hand and I remember playing with that too. Obviously, as a young person, to be hit by illness is tough and...
And she'd get angry sometimes. But she had a heart of gold. But, yeah, she was going through a tough, tough period.
Is that where the thought, the idea to become a doctor first rose up in you, do you think?
I suspect it did. I don't think I... I didn't realise that at the time. But, yeah, I'm sure it had an impact on me. But I didn't decide to do that till I was in about year 10 at school. Most of my friends didn't do years 11 and 12 and similarly didn't go down to university, the friends I made in years 11 and 12. But my... Yeah, my parents were very, very caring and gave us a great time and...
wanted us to enjoy life and make the most of things.
So you went off to Hobart to study for your medical degree and you took on various odd jobs to pay your way through that study. What are some of the things you did to pay the rent as a medical student?
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