So, I had to drop off the Audi Q5 which has an oil leak from the sump. Not old, a rare example of German imprecision. Got to take the engine out, they will have the car for 1-2 weeks. I had teed up with boss mechanic, to drop off early at his shop at Campbelltown, then catch the train to the city to Dame Marie Bashir’s State funeral. All good.

Get to the funeral, and I’m sitting in the overflow in Martin Place, and it’s a glorious Sydney morning. I see a few old friends and colleagues.

The wonderful eulogies from her daughter, Alexandra, granddaughter, Francesca, Bob Carr, Bruce Robinson and the Reverand all enhanced the portrait we already knew: a remarkable person and life, one who viewed the world and humans with wonder, curiosity and empathy. The send-off and guard of honour was, appropriately, extraordinary, led by the ‘Marie Bashir’ 737 fire-fighting plane of the RFS (perhaps a new growth forest would have been better recognition for her than something that puts out fires, but hard to beat having a plane named after you), which flew over Phillip Street as she was taken to her well-deserved rest. 

And it triggers the usual mixed emotions. At this time of life, I’m attending a lot of funerals of the generation before me: parents, their sibs and contemporaries, bosses and mentors. It’s about the only time when I do actually stop and reflect, mainly on their lives, but then spiral into inevitable and narcissistic consideration of mine, and I think of what they did, how they did it, what I’ve done, and what I haven’t. And time is running out. So much regret.

I don’t think regret was in Marie’s vocabulary. So, I think, how do you live a life more like Marie’s when you’ve only got 20 or 30 years left, if lucky? How do you correct the flaws, make up for mistakes, shift the focus?

Like a New Year’s resolution, these thoughts and associated corrections last about an hour. And I then counsel myself with what I counsel my patients, with respect to the self: the point to life is acceptance, and if you have that by the time you gasp your last, you’ve done all right. It might seem like low bearing fruit, but it is what it is.

So why share this? Well, the bit that eats at me from my "obsequidian" reflections, is about time (bing! It’s About Time, arguably better than Gilligan’s Island, about astronauts travelling back in time to live among cavepersons, who were cannier – a bit like the reductionist confronting the reality that we need to do the simple things well, for better patient outcomes, like engagement, consistency, continuity, more than manipulating 500 trillion synapses). I’m old, the clock is ticking and I fear adding to my regrets. I have to take over as President next year. Astha and the Board have set a cracking pace because the College has to move quickly to stay relevant and essential to the membership and the community. The agenda is full and dynamic and more has happened, is and will be happening, within and outside the College, than we’re used to (lately, Astha and the other Board members have given you a great rundown of everything that we’ve been engaged in). And with change, in a pretty conservative organisation, comes pain, so we have a lot more listening, debate, explaining, a bit of conflict resolution, healing and decisive leadership ahead.

Back to me, and being without a juicy portfolio on the Board, I turned my mind to workforce. So, we formed a workforce working group, following our Workforce Summit late last year. It was an ambitious idea (perhaps as Casey Stoner of Valentino Rossi, when he crashed into him attempting an overtake ‘his ambition exceeded his talent’). What’s the point? Well, there were so many things happening on so many fronts, so much being done in different pockets of the organisation, by you and the staff, and stuff we needed to do, that we wanted to make sense of it all and try to align what we say and do about workforce with the strategic plan. ‘This is the public psychiatric workforce we need. This is the private psychiatric workforce we need’ (we being the collective we, and those we serve). It’s an action-oriented group, focussed first on getting better data about what we do (especially in the private sector, where so many assumptions and generalisations are made, and so we aren’t good at defending our turfs). And then there’s talk about ‘equity’, ‘access,’ ‘maldistribution'. Well, what are we going to do about it? The avenues that an exploration of workforce can take you down are manifold, some of it in our control, and a lot of it not. The usual inclination is to be overwhelmed, rock and suck my thumb. But now, I try to think ‘what would Marie do?’

And on that beautiful day of farewell, this "Marieorisation" was soon tested. The mechanic had rung me just before the funeral with the tragic tale that they’d actually made a mistake with their scheduling and couldn’t do the job for another 4 weeks. I could have responded in my usual way, with florid hypertension and expletives, yet another example of inefficiency and/or persecution, helplessness heaped on demoralisation. But my new inner-Marie popped onto my shoulder and said, ‘Good on him, that he has a lot of work on. Look out the train window – what a remarkable land we live on; Campbelltown has the most beautiful canopy of gum trees awaiting you. Listen to some Bach on the way. Maybe some other opportunity or idea will present itself as you drive your poor, little, oil-challenged Audi home.’ 

It's a start.