Ben Bravery · 71 min
A stage three bowel cancer diagnosis at 28 transformed a zoologist and science communicator into a doctor on a mission to humanise a healthcare system he experienced as both patient and reformer.
Hear this story
Ben Bravery was 28, living in China, building a business in science communication, and five months into a relationship when he came home to Australia to renew his visa. His mother scheduled him for a colonoscopy after he mentioned some symptoms he'd been ignoring for months. The scan found stage 3 bowel cancer. Within days, everything changed. He never went back to Beijing.
What struck Ben most was not the diagnosis itself, but how he chose to hold it. He refused the language of battle and fighting that people offered him. Instead, he thought of healing as something his body was doing, not something he had to wage war against. He accepted treatment, surgery, chemotherapy, complications. He also watched the healthcare system closely, observing it the way a zoologist observes habitat. He noticed it was not designed for patients, not built with care in mind, and he saw where the distance between doctors and patients began: in medical school, where empathy was never selected for and distance was actively reinforced.
A year and a half after a 3 AM steroid-fueled night when he typed "how do I become a doctor" into Google, Ben enrolled in medical school. He was still a cancer patient undergoing surveillance. He was different from his classmates in every way that mattered. Now a doctor himself, he works in a public hospital, delivering care while trying to change how that care is provided. He has seen what good healthcare looks like: a space where someone is greeted as a person, where vulnerability is safe, where the power difference is used for the patient's benefit. He believes the system can change, not because one person has all the answers, but because the people providing care and the people receiving it are finally willing to sit at a table together and think.
“I can no longer separate myself from the illness experience. It's all I know and it's the reason that I am who I am today and it guides the choices I've made.”
“Those moments to connect with the healthcare providers and the people around you. That's medicine. Like that's healing.”
“They set off this path where they select this really odd group of people that do not represent society. And then make them even less representative.”
The hero, today
Ben's mother seeded the idea that there was more to discover and that growth came from taking opportunities as they appeared, a drive that shaped every choice he made afterward. When Ben was diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer at 28, he did not frame it as a war to fight but as something his body was experiencing that required integration and healing, not aggression. Ben gave his partner Sana the option to leave because he did not want their relationship to be glued together by crisis; she stayed, but the diagnosis aged them so quickly they lost months of joy and had to rebuild trust over years. Ben learned that the healing spaces he valued most were not hospitals but clinics where someone greeted him as a person, asked about his whole life, and made vulnerability feel safe without stripping his dignity. Medical schools select students for academic ability and memorization, then reinforce the distance between doctors and patients, and this pattern has been documented for 30 years in the research literature. Ben believes healthcare will change when doctors and patients sit together at a table with mutual respect and think through problems from each other's perspective, and he has seen examples of that happening already in emergency departments and wards across Australia.
Yes. Ben Bravery is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
Ben's mother seeded the idea that there was more to discover and that growth came from taking opportunities as they appeared, a drive that shaped every choice he made afterward.
When Ben was diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer at 28, he did not frame it as a war to fight but as something his body was experiencing that required integration and healing, not aggression.
Ben gave his partner Sana the option to leave because he did not want their relationship to be glued together by crisis; she stayed, but the diagnosis aged them so quickly they lost months of joy and had to rebuild trust over years.
John Milham (Host) · 00:05
Welcome back to Kintsugi Heroes, helping people tell the stories they need to share so you can find the stories that you need to hear.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 00:15
In this episode, John Millum is joined by Ben Bravery, who has had a remarkable journey from a career in zoology to becoming a doctor. Influenced by his mother's ambition and a deep curiosity about the world, Ben initially worked in environmental policy before moving to China as a youth ambassador. His life took an unexpected turn when he was diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer. This life-altering moment inspired him to transition into medicine, not just as a profession, but as a platform for change.
John Milham (Host) · 00:50
Join us as Ben shares how his personal experiences shape his commitment to transforming healthcare from within, emphasizing empathy, patient care, and meaningful change. Enjoy this one with Ben Bravery. Hello, uh, listeners out there to Kuntugi Heroes, and welcome to another podcast, Stories That Matter. And, um, enormously privileged today to, um, to talk to a man, um, who is a doctor, scientist, a zoologist, I think the term was, um, uh, patient and author among many other things, right? Ben Bravery. Thank you, Ben, for joining Katsuki here at Stories That Matter.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 01:36
Thank you, John. What a privilege for me to be here talking to you.
John Milham (Host) · 01:39
Oh, you're very kind. I love the idea, like when I heard you speak and you were inspiring and challenging and real, right? You both lived experience and, you know, and, and also, you know, valid technical input, right? So, um, but an incredible story, right, which is where it all starts, right? So maybe we go back to, uh, the young Ben Bravery. I often say, you know, let's go back. How did the young Ben Bravery end up with, uh, well, you know, before we get into the, to the patient side of things, how did we— you end up deciding pandas was the thing, right?
More stories
This site is part of Kintsugi Heroes. Visit the main site for the full podcast. If any of these stories hit close to home, support is out there, you don't have to sit with it alone.
Read how we handle these stories ↗
Kintsugi Heroes · Registered Australian not-for-profit · kintsugiheroes.com.au ↗
Ben learned that the healing spaces he valued most were not hospitals but clinics where someone greeted him as a person, asked about his whole life, and made vulnerability feel safe without stripping his dignity.
This conversation includes the young ben and his mother's ambition, no male role models, so he chose one, why a working-class kid studied animals, four years in china on a nature reserve, a 5-day visit home turns into a colonoscopy and fifty-fifty odds and what it means to own a diagnosis.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 02:27
Yeah, well, I didn't— like a lot of things in life, I didn't actually decide on pandas. Pandas decided on me. And I think part of that is like having an opportunism, right? So looking for opportunities and taking them when they present themselves. And I think if I think back, that comes from my mum. She was, is an incredible person and she raised myself and my sister, who's 2 years younger, in Southeast Queensland. And she did that alone. Neither of our fathers were around and when they were, they weren't particularly helpful. And so, she did it on her own and she was, you know, this was pre-Centralink. So, she had to make it work. She relied on family, of course, but she's also got this incredible inner strength and ethic about her. You know, she would work up to 3 jobs at a time. She wanted us to have something different and she wanted us to be different. And I think she just always looked for opportunities for us to grow as a family. She really respected us as her children. And that sounds funny to say, but like, you know, she would talk about adult things with us. And I think it's because, you know, she was doing it alone. We were— the 3 of us became this quite tight unit. And that gave me a sense of ambition, of drive, of wanting to improve myself, but also the things I walk past and the situations I see. You know, she had a real drive for inclusivity before it was a word. So, you know, racism wasn't allowed, intolerance wasn't allowed, respecting differences was encouraged. And so that's kind of when I think back, that's the foundation of who I am. Yeah.
John Milham (Host) · 04:23
It's interesting. So many challenges for, in particular, men, which is a particular focus of mine, right, is often traced back to the struggle for men to, you know, for young people to have positive male role models and so on. So, did you think like your mum sounded like she created an amazing environment of support and but also challenge, right? Was that, you know, was she doing a job as a positive male role model? Is that where?
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 05:02
No, I think enough, it's a difficult thing for me to talk about with her because she, She is my mum. And there was no— she didn't try to be the other gender or the other role. She did the best she could, right? It's not all Care Bears, John. Like, there were some difficult times. And some of that's to do with the men that she chose to bring into our lives, right? And I'm very open with her about this, and she's a different person today. I didn't have positive male role models, and in fact, I actually feared, um, maleness and ego and testosterone and aggression, um, for obvious reasons. My grandfather, who had 4 daughters, one of whom was my mom, um, you know, played that role to some extent, but, but could never be that role because, you know, one generation removed, and he's my mom's dad, um, which meant that I had very positive female role models around me, and that's carried through to today. But it meant that I was aware that I didn't have that male role model, which led me to actually find one. And that's how I chose my dad. Yeah.
John Milham (Host) · 06:16
Brilliant. I love that. Yeah, finding those role models. So it sounds like you were set up to adventure, right? And of course, that's what you did, right? Zoology. So you studied zoology. Why?
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 06:30
It's a bit of a wild choice. It's a bit of an outlier in the sense that my family were very like working-class grounded people, right? So you went to high school for as long as you needed to to get a job. It didn't— you didn't finish. You did as much as you needed to to go get a job because that was where the effort should be. That's where the career was. And my family, to their credit, like they get jobs and they hold them. You know, it's the generation where they work somewhere for 25 years and they've worked their way up the chain. It's very impressive. They're natural leaders and managers and organizers. So for me to say one time around the dinner table, like, I'm going to go to university, first of all, and they were like, they were suspicious because people that went to university, you know, they thought were snobby. They thought they were better than them. You know, there's this whole fear of—
John Milham (Host) · 07:18
You're going to work in an iron lung.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 07:19
Yeah, absolutely. And then also, hang on, you're going to study animals? Why on earth would you want to study? You mean you're going to be a vet? I'm like, no, I'm sorry, Nan. I'm not going to be a vet. She's like, okay, so you're going to work in a zoo? No, I'm not going to actually work in a zoo either. So you're just going to sit around and read about animals and then maybe go and find one in the wild? That's exactly what I want to do. Wow. And so it kind of came from a deep empathy with animals and the environment, right? Like, I can remember from a very young age watching a documentary about the tuna industry. I was, I was born in '82, so this would have been like '88, '87. And that's when we were becoming really aware of like bycatch and the environmental consequences of these things. And I, I was watching this tuna documentary and these fishermen were just slicing up dolphins because they were also eating the tuna. And I just burst into tears, and my mom ran into the room and she held me and she turned the documentary off, which I actually wanted to keep watching. But it just— I remember, like, I was just struck with this need to connect with animals, particularly in the injustice, and help them out. And I could see that people were a problem when it came to wildlife and animals, right? And so I wanted to understand that scientifically to see what I could do about it.
John Milham (Host) · 08:29
Incredible answering that call. So, you studied zoology and then, you know, from the talk, I know that you ended up in China, right? And, you know, the pandas, you know, as I said, they seized on you, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and of course, at that stage, you know, heading to China was also an adventure. So, you know, you totally—
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 08:51
yeah, yeah, totally. So, so, like, for example, within the family, if I think about the extended family, like I left the area of Southeast Queensland, Logan, where I grew up, and that was unusual. To go to university was unusual. To live overseas was unusual. There was a series of firsts. I had an outward view. I didn't want to just close off and stay local. And I think that comes from that ambition I talked about. It comes from Mum seeding this idea that there was more and that there was stuff to be discovered and it was all wonderful. And so, yeah, I took my— after a year of working for the Australian government, trying to do environmental policy, but realizing I was just rubber stamping coal mines, I decided to go to China as a youth ambassador for development, right? So, like, aid program and work in this nature reserve off the southern coast on an island called Hainan, saving endangered deer and then helping them promote that incredible work. And it was like, this was 3 languages removed from standard Chinese, right? From Mandarin. So, very local, quite remote, a long way from Beijing where all the policy comes from, um, kind of like the Wild West. A lot of China saw it and it was just— it was wild. It was so fun. Yeah.
John Milham (Host) · 10:09
Wow. Because naturally China is an extraordinary place to be, visit.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 10:14
Incredible.
John Milham (Host) · 10:15
For a zoologist, it would be insane.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 10:18
It's, it's kind of— it's really interesting from two aspects. So you've got this amazing human diversity, culture, food, language, rich history, um, really strong principles that the cultures have maintained over thousands of years. And then you have this really intense modern conflict with the environment. So the Chinese are unparalleled in their ability to landscape and modify the environment. You know, they build enormous dams, still the largest dam on Earth. It changed weather patterns locally where it was built. Yeah, I mean, the Great Wall, if you think about it, is a large environmental modification thing that still is ambitious in scope. They plant millions of trees when they need to, they clear millions of trees when they need to, they shift rivers, they put up skyscrapers, they take them down. And, and all of this is conflict with wildlife. Wildlife compete with them for space, which is a premium in a country that's the most populated on Earth, and they overlap in the foods they like to eat, whether people find them delicacies, whether people find them having medicinal properties. It was, it was tense, right? And there's this kind of, uh, sense of Chinese growth and expansion, and often that would come at the cost of the environment, right? The air that I lived in was not clean. Yeah, the water that I drank I could not trust. The restaurants I ate were regularly plagued leaked by scandals that involve plastic in the food, rat meat pretending to be lamb. Like, it was— it's kind of intense on all levels, but at the same time, as a 20-something, what— I could not think of a better place to spend some of those formative years.
John Milham (Host) · 11:48
So, um, the journey itself, right, which is like— and I'd invite people to check the story, you know, like the complexities China and your journey through the zoology of it all. From a person, you know, like that, an extraordinary adventure. From a personal point of view, your story really takes on some challenge when you come back to Australia for a visit and then you're not feeling well.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 12:21
Absolutely. I'd been living in China for 4 years. I had no intention to leave. I'd pivoted from science to science communication, so I was helping Chinese researchers promote their work abroad. And there was this really ambitious agenda to do that. It was post-Olympics. There was lots of money for this kind of thing. And people saw, you know, the Chinese people themselves, to their credit, believe in the prestige of science. They believe in the academic history of them as a people, and that shone through. Um, and so I was capitalizing on that and helping Chinese researchers, mainly zoologists, communicate amazing stuff that they were doing but needed the other— the world to learn about. I was building a business. I had just fallen in love. I was in a relationship of just 5 months with a Canadian journalist. Everything was going beautifully, except it wasn't. So for about 6 months, I'd, I'd had a whole range of symptoms that I'd kind of ignored.
John Milham (Host) · 13:14
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 13:15
Um, and, and we may get into why, why guys in particular do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'd ignored them, and I'd just come back to Australia to get a visa. It was a 5-day trip, and I happened to tell my mom before the trip about all my symptoms. It was time to kind of share um, and you know, what better place than your mom? And, um, she, she quickly told me I was having a colonoscopy. And, um, she did that not because she's a doctor, but just because she loves them. And so she had scheduled me a colonoscopy in those 5 days, and I never made it back to China. What was found during that colonoscopy, um, stopped me in my tracks and set me on a completely different path.
John Milham (Host) · 13:54
Yeah, which was, um, a diagnosis of, um, bowel cancer.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 13:59
So absolutely, um, quite an advanced one. So like, you know, there's a staging system in cancer. This was around stage 3, so before the big scary one of stage 4, but it was on the— it was on the cusp, and all the behavior of the tumor and the cancer indicated it was on its way. Um, I quickly learned that young people, um, that get bowel cancer tend to get it later because of the same reason that I've just told you, John. Like, I just ignored some things. And some things were common, like diarrhea and constipation. And I'd lose a little bit of weight, then I'd put the weight back on.
John Milham (Host) · 14:34
Something you ate, right? Right. Yeah, yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 14:36
Like, consistently. And I was eating at all the places I knew I shouldn't because they tasted amazing. And so I'd regularly have gastro and just go, well, it's gastro. And then a bit of bleeding crept in. And, you know, it was time to face the facts that something was really wrong.
John Milham (Host) · 14:50
Yeah. So, uh, um, uh, stage 3 bowel cancer is, um, scary. Uh, yeah, seriously scary.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 14:59
Yeah, it's like 50/50. It's 50/50 at that stage.
John Milham (Host) · 15:02
Yeah. For a young man with, uh, everything going right, right? What, uh, what did you do to accept that diagnosis?
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 15:14
Oh, It took a while, mate. It took a while. I mean, I, I didn't— I never kind of rejected it, so I didn't do that denial kind of thing that is common. Um, I, I accepted it. I went back to basics, so I had a little poke around the scientific literature. Um, it was different though, like it was medicine, so it wasn't zoology. I didn't know a lot of the stuff. Um, I, I consulted experts, you know, Cancer Council, surgeons, oncologists, because that's kind of, you know, what I was used to you're doing when you wanted to learn something. Um, I leaned on family and friends around me, which is another way that I'd coped with things in the past, and drew from them and their opinions and their advice about what I should do. But to be honest, I think it took a bloody long time to really embody the diagnosis, because cancer's this weird thing, right, where it's, it's you but it isn't. So it's like it's tissue that started off as you, but it's not me anymore. It's become this thing that's mutated and it's got a life of its own and it's got its own agenda and it feels foreign. You know, it feels like an infection. It feels like something that's come in and it's gonna do bad things and the treatment is to get it out. Yeah. So that gap between me and it kind of persists. It took a long time to accept accept that this, this was a real thing that had real consequences, and to own up and face those consequences. You know, the 50/50 odds, the chance that, um, I might emerge, but I'd emerge very different, with different anatomy, um, different biology, different psychology, different function, right? And that it would not only change me, but it would change the people around me. Um, it, it, it took a while to do that. And to be really honest with you, John, like 14 years later, I'm still kind of doing it. I think I'm still, I'm still kind of working out what it all meant.
John Milham (Host) · 17:28
This moment, like, there's, um, you know, having, um, some experience myself, the, the, um people can, you know, like men tend to immediately gear up for battle. Was that your response?
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 17:44
No, I didn't identify— there's a whole war on cancer narrative, right?
John Milham (Host) · 17:50
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 17:51
I didn't, I just didn't identify it, John. And now that you know a little bit about my history, you'd see why I didn't want to use that language. It's not natural for me. I've never been in a fight. I'm an absolute pacifist, right? And I'm lucky, and I'm 6'5", so people tend to avoid me.
John Milham (Host) · 18:08
Um, naturally suited for pacifism.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 18:10
Yeah, and I'm fast on my feet. So, so I, I, I, and the idea of fighting it and going to battle, and people tried to say that to me, and I would like nod, I would nod and accept their view. It just didn't feel right to me. It also felt like, um, that it wasn't a war because it's still my body. Yeah, and I've got to be in it afterwards.
John Milham (Host) · 18:35
Yeah, yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 18:36
And yes, I will have scars, and yes, there will be changes, but I just was really uncomfortable with the aggression of it. Um, not that I didn't want all the treatments, and I knew they would be toxic, right, which is a different type of aggression, but I just didn't want to be aggressive about it.
John Milham (Host) · 18:53
Yeah, I, I love that view, like the, the concept, because for me it was a like it's kind of a— it was a new concept, right? You know, like battle was, you know, probably my, you know, first option for everything in life.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 19:10
Yeah.
John Milham (Host) · 19:10
So, yeah. Um, but as you know, now, you know, perspective, when you look back at that, did that give you something extra? Was that like that sense of, um,, you know, were you closer to, uh, understanding the integrated nature of your body, right? You know, like, because healing is something that isn't a battle, right? You don't fight your way to healing. You sort of, you know, you know, integrate into healing, you know. Does that— was that— was that a benefit to you?
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 19:46
Yeah, I mean, you're doing, um, a better job than me of explaining that, actually. That's a really nice concept. I didn't I, I guess I didn't have— I don't see it as an advantage because I think there's lots of ways to approach illness and recovery. Um, and you know, particularly in my brand, my branch of psychiatry that I'm, I'm, you know, I'm a doctor now, I don't— I'm well aware of multiple ways of being and living. Um, I, I don't think it gave me advantage. I just think it suited me. And I think, I think that's what you have to do. You have to find the thing that's a natural extension of you that draws on your skills but creates space to adapt, right? Which is what you mean, I think, by integration. Integrating new ways of thinking, new skills, but also recovering as a whole. And I, and I, I, I was aware but, but scared of what would be left at the end, you know. I wasn't sure how much of me, and anatomically and kind of you know, psychically almost was going to be intact. Yeah. And whether, whether people would like that person, whether it would be too burdensome for people. Um, and you know, you're right, it's an integration. And I think that's part of choosing to become a doctor, which is where this ends, is like maybe that's the ultimate integration. Like maybe I've just gone back into this world as someone without cancer but still experiencing, you know, what it means to live with the diagnosis and constant surveillance and, and still learning about who I am in this post-cancer world. Such—
John Milham (Host) · 21:26
it's so interesting because, um, you know, I often think, and, you know, talking to people, I often think, uh, this— the place for, for men to begin to grow and expand it begins with identity and to have that, there's safety. But often it's that complete breakdown of that crisis that we encounter that begins the, you know, distracts us enough from the bright shiny things to look for ourselves, right? Look for our identity in that. Is that something around like the gift of struggle, the gift of trauma sometimes is that reflection. Do you feel like there's a gift in that for you?
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 22:13
Yeah, I mean, personally, yes. I mean, I, you know, it's that classic idea that I wouldn't have it any other way, but I wouldn't wish it upon anyone.
John Milham (Host) · 22:24
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 22:25
It's that classic idea, right? And like, I can no longer separate myself from the illness experience. It's, it's all I know, and it's the reason that I am who I am today, and it guides the choices I've made. Um, and to me, that is growth, and I have been able to grow. But I also entirely acknowledge that it is not that for a lot of people, and that growth looks different, right? I mean, what I've done is weird. Like, I've grown in a way that's odd. Um, but, you know, equally, I've supported younger people with cancer that that, you know, like were, were accountants, got cancer, had treatment, and went straight back to accountancy and didn't want anything to change. Like, blip, reintegrate, on you go with your world. And I think they're all ways of, of growing and overcoming illness. But for me, I've used it, right? And I think that's how you kind of open this thing. It was like, where's— what, what are the pieces in you that allowed you to use this in this way?
John Milham (Host) · 23:24
Yeah, very true. Interesting, just in terms of context, right? If we go back to that time where you've got a diagnosis and you've got to find a way forward, one of the interesting things is how I see people talk about cancer, making decisions about how to communicate it, what stigma is attached to having cancer, and so on. What was your experience like sharing the news and, you know, did people struggle to talk with you and did you need that or find a way to solve that dilemma?
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 24:04
Yeah, it's a mixed bag, as you well know. It's a mixed bag. I mean, different people have different skills. I was 28, so that's a slight difference to it. My partner was 22, even younger. There's a, you know, there's people that you know are going to kind of dissolve in front of you.
John Milham (Host) · 24:23
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 24:24
And those, when I thought that might happen, I would outsource the communication. So, I might say like, Mom, can you call, you know, I've got this adorable Auntie Cathy who's just the most emotional person you'll ever meet. I was like, can you just tell Auntie Cathy I don't think I can have that conversation? Because I knew within seconds of hearing it, she would kind of crumble and need the support, right? Um, there were other people that kind of treated it almost like I've told them I've got a paper cut, right? Like, oh, I cut my finger today on an envelope. And they were just completely okay. Oh yeah, you got cancer, right? What's next? And it's like, no, there's a middle ground where what I needed was some kind of, you know, empathy, sympathy, but not distress. Yeah, I didn't want to have to prop up other people. Um, and then there was like, I remember a good mate Tim who I'd started the business with in China I told him and then he happened to be coming to Australia for his own visa reasons about a month after my diagnosis and I hadn't made it back to Beijing. And he was coming back, I was in Melbourne and he was coming back to Sydney and he wasn't gonna come and see me. And I thought, well, that's odd, like we're kind of best buddies and we're setting up this business together and I've just got cancer and it's like, and I mustered up the strength to email him, like not even call him about it 'cause I was so scared and I emailed him, I was like, like, dude, I think I need you to come and say hi and ask to like just go for a walk together. And he was like, I'm so sorry, I just, I didn't know. I didn't know what to do.
John Milham (Host) · 25:57
Wow.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 25:57
And I didn't know how to come there and be with you in that space when you may die. And I think, you know, some people were really open-minded about asking me what what they wanted. Um, but God, it's a mixed bag. And I get really skeptical of like, uh, guides and blueprints about how to be because it's, as you know, John, it's so individual and it's going to depend on each relationship that you have. Um, the key thing that I say to people who are supporting others with illness is read the room. Just read the room and ask, ask, ask, ask. People avoid this stuff, you know this, that's why you've got a podcast. People avoid these topics and we all yearn to talk about it. That's going to vary how we do that, but the yearning I think is almost universal. And so create the window.
John Milham (Host) · 26:55
Absolutely, such good advice. Thank you for that. Because, you know, one thing I notice, you know, supporting people going through big challenges is at that time, it's the most important thing in their life. And yet there's a whole sort of energy in the community to gloss over it like it's nothing, right? And I find that a very interesting dichotomy, challenging one.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 27:26
Yeah. And John, I think it's got a cultural— we might get off topic, but I think it's got a real cultural component to it. I think, you know, kind of, you know, we share a culture and I think our culture is not particularly good at it. I think you're like, but other cultures are so much better at this. You know, some are worse, but some are so much better. And I think that, you know, it's really important that we just are aware that I think, again, I think it's universal that you're right, John, it's the most important thing for that person. And whether it's, if it was a wedding that was the most important thing, you'd talk about it. If it was the birth of a new child, it was the most important thing, you would talk about it. We should treat illness the same, right?
John Milham (Host) · 28:04
Yeah, you can't shut up grandparents when they've got a new grandchild. No way.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 28:07
But give them a cancer diagnosis and they go to ground.
John Milham (Host) · 28:10
Yeah, exactly.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 28:11
Yeah.
John Milham (Host) · 28:12
Um, do you mind if I ask you about, you know, you had a 5-month relationship. Can I ask you about that? So yeah, the, the stress on, uh, on that from both sides must have been huge, right? How, how did, how did you navigate that, right? Was that was that the making? Because you now, of course, you've gone on and stayed together and married and children and so on. So was that the making or was that a challenge to overcome?
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 28:43
It's a good question. I think it's both. I think the challenge was foundational. I was lucky because so I was 28, Sana was 22. She's Canadian Pakistani. So there was some cross-cultural stuff that we knew we'd have to navigate. Relocate eventually in terms of religion and geography, but we didn't anticipate this acute challenge. Um, I got the diagnosis. I literally, like, I was totally in love with her, um, and she was me, and I, you know, I was head over heels, which, which, um, hadn't happened in that way before. Um, well aware though that she was 22, right? Like, it's a big deal. Um, and I, I literally had to say you know, this is— this can be my thing, and you don't— you didn't sign up for this.
John Milham (Host) · 29:35
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 29:36
And it will be okay if you don't want to be a part of this. Um, and she never— she never hesitated. Um, but I still— I still gave her that option later as well, like, because I just— yeah, I really wanted to make sure that this this didn't become the thing that glued us together because of this. I wanted it to glue us together because what we already had meant we could. Um, and it was such a challenge. My God, we— so she— so I flew back for 5 days. I never made it back to Beijing. I have to call her after the colonoscopy from the car park and say, they found a mass. It's, it's horrible. It's probably a tumor. I'm being rushed off for a CT scan. Um, the next day she, she had to go and film a TV show, um, an hour after our phone call. Um, she then gave them notice, she got on a plane, she was within Melbourne within 24 hours. Then we have the problem of, okay, so where do we live and what do we do? And you need a visa and we have no savings. And it kind of forced us together. What it did for us was it it aged the relationship really quickly. Yeah. And that's not always amazing.
John Milham (Host) · 30:55
No.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 30:55
Because it meant that we actually did miss out on those— you know, we had 5 months, but you normally get a bit longer where it's joyful and fun and flirty and ultra sexual, and it's all those things. Yeah. That stopped.
John Milham (Host) · 31:11
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 31:12
5 months in, and it took years to get that back, years to get that back. And so the, the, the, the benefit is there's a trust and an intimacy that is unparalleled at our ages. Yeah, but we lost a trust and an intimacy for our ages.
John Milham (Host) · 31:33
Wow, so that's, um, a wonderful, uh, assessment of of the challenges. And of course, it's— there's a lot of wisdom in that for, you know, because, you know, people judge, you know, partners for, say, leaving a situation like that. And you can completely understand when you're, you know, standing back.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 31:58
Yeah, I mean, we've had friends. So we made, um, Sana had a very good friend, a best friend actually, in Beijing who coincidentally got a melanoma diagnosis a year after my diagnosis, she moved back to New York. Um, radically different treatment journeys. You know, she was paying for chemo on credit card. Like, the American health system is a whole other podcast. Um, and I'm, I'm running through, you know, gold standard treatment, waiving a Medicare card.
John Milham (Host) · 32:23
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 32:23
Yeah. Um, but she was with a guy. They'd been together for about 6 months when she got diagnosed, and he left.
John Milham (Host) · 32:29
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 32:30
And I, you know, it's— that's painful.
John Milham (Host) · 32:33
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 32:33
And it's hurtful, but I understand it.
John Milham (Host) · 32:35
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 32:35
And, you know, it was very difficult. And Sana naturally had a lot of anger because she'd stuck with me, right? But it's a different relationship and it's really hard to judge on the outside.
John Milham (Host) · 32:49
Yeah, absolutely. And that goes back to, you know, that idea of conversation, right? You know, read the room, get in there and have a conversation about things. I love that. Again, thank you for sharing that. We kind of get to the journey and like your progress, like the good, the bad, the blood and tears, right? You did well. What now with some, you know, because we don't remember the pain, right? We don't remember the thing. We remember the context of it. When you look back on it now, What is your overall impression of that process? What do you like about it? I like yourself and what, what, how you reacted and what you did. And what do you wish you knew more about now? Yeah, wish you the benefit of hindsight.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 33:47
Yeah, so I, I didn't— I hadn't been ill, um, before this, uh, so not— I not, not only navigating illness, I was navigating a healthcare system.
John Milham (Host) · 33:58
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 33:58
Um, you know, don't have, don't have doctors in family or in, or anyone health trained, so it was all alien. Um, I, you know, I needed radiation therapy, a very large surgery, um, and then some chemotherapy for 5 months. Got blood clots in the lungs, needed anticoagulation after that. So it was like, like, not, not complication-free. I had a stoma for a year that I lived with and managed a bag, which was eventually reversed Um, I've got lots of regrets about being ill. Um, and, and again, it comes back to Sana. I just think, uh, you know, I— it would have— it would be— it would be hard for me to do it differently because you just do what you do. Um, but I, I was— I was an asshole at times, and I, I was very— and it sounds weird to say I was very selfish and part of it needs to be, right? Because it's my cancer and I've got to get over it. And I've got to do what's in my interest. But I took a lot from her and I didn't always think about care for the carer.
John Milham (Host) · 35:08
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 35:08
I didn't. And she's not naturally a person that finds it easy to ask for help. Job. And I think maybe I could have done a better job at making sure that my principal carer was cared for very hard in the throes of discomfort and pain and frustration and, you know, existential agony. But that was kind of the big thing that I kind of regret and think about. I think I navigated the healthcare system okay. I have all the problems that everyone else does, and that's why I became a doctor exactly, because the system is hard and it does dehumanize, it, it disempowers, it does all these horrible things to people. Um, I don't think I did any better or worse than anyone else in that regard, but in terms of the initial response to illness, it would really be about my now wife and some of the regrets I carry there.
John Milham (Host) · 36:06
I think that's, um, you know, uh, you know, a great way of looking at it, that moment of connection is such a powerful resource, right? So is there like, who else was connected to you? Like, who else offered that resource?
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 36:27
Yeah, people were fantastic. My sister was, was based in Sydney at the time, was very helpful, flew down, supported me. Thought of interesting ways to help me heal. She— I remember she rocked up with a voucher for an energetic healer, um, you know, and I had, I had a science degree and I reminded her of that, um, but she was like, you know, just, you know, you know, keep an open mind, things like that, which set off, set me off on a really interesting exploration into alternative medicine, but also actually really informs my work as a doctor now, having been in that environment and seeing how they do things so differently, um. Dad came down, so the eventual dad that I chose when I was 15, his name's Ian. He was heavily involved in my life by then. He came down and supported us, and he, you know, he loves cooking and tidying up, so he was very helpful in that department. Mum in Melbourne was an extremely, you know, Mum was Mum. She was there with bags of goodies, toiletries. She would take time off to come and sit with me during chemo, and she was a big financial support, right? What we don't talk about enough in major illness like this is the financial toxicity.
John Milham (Host) · 37:35
Absolutely.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 37:36
It's an emerging thing. And, you know, despite having a world-class health system, there's lots that's out of pocket and there's lots that you don't— aren't scaffolded by. Absolutely. And Mum was— just knowing that Mum was there, that she had some savings that she could safety net us, like, that was just invaluable. And then there's all the experts, you know, like the psychologists, the physiotherapists, the stoma therapists who also happen to be trained in sexual function and sexual counseling, who was able to ask all those questions about like, you know, is my penis going to work again? And what do I do with my testicles now that they've been zapped? Like all these things. So that like the health system gave me connection as well, which was really nice. And those, those relationships. So, you know, when you, the chaos of a busy surgical ward in a leading cancer hospital, the stoma therapist that comes in and has that conversation with you is a conversation that stays with you forever.. I remember there was a music therapist who would come and play music on the ward. Sarah and I happened to have our 1-year anniversary while I was admitted post-op, and she, you know, she took a song request and pulled that, pulled that curtain across from my 4-bedroom, and it just felt like we were on a date.
John Milham (Host) · 38:46
Wow.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 38:46
And she played to us and we just held each other. I mean, those things, you know, those, those moments to connect with the healthcare providers and the people around you, that, that's medicine. Medicine. Yeah, like that's healing.
John Milham (Host) · 38:59
But of course, that view of medicine is informed by your experience, right? And a lot of the doctors in, you know, both have a different experience. They don't bring— they have an expertise rather than an experience, right? Um, which brings us probably to what you learned and then the choice. You know, I read in your you Googled how to become a doctor. Obviously something popped into your head.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 39:26
Yeah, yeah, you're right. Yeah, I did, I did.
John Milham (Host) · 39:29
Well, like, what was the, what was the link, right? You know, was suddenly going like, did a specialist walk in and piss you off and you said, oh bugger it, I can do this better myself, right?
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 39:39
No, it's interesting, there was no one moment where it kind of coalesced. I, I had like, because I kind of, you know, I'd studied animal behavior, that was one of my specialties within zoology, so I kind of like was observing how people interacted in this space, how they kind of moved through it as habitat. The thing that struck me over the treatment was that it's a very weird space. Hospitals are a weird space. They're odd. They're— it's not immediately clear who they're designed for. They don't— they didn't appear to be designed for patients, and they almost didn't appear to be designed for doctors and nurses either. So it left me wondering who on earth had made this thing. The systems were unusual. The routine and the pattern was odd. The theater of it, you know, stripped of your clothing and your personal belongings, barcode on the wrist, under a bed number, behind a piece of plastic that's ripped open at will by people who don't tell you who they are. And I had equally beautiful experiences and equally distressing experiences across a range of healthcare providers. What I realized was there was no one person or thing in the system that was a problem. The collective sum of the system. And being, you know, an ecologist and thinking about systems and environments and habitat, I felt like there was something I could contribute here. I remember one point during chemotherapy, I was in a steroid-induced insomniac rage, and it was like 3 AM, and I'd been baking banana bread, and I had to stop. And I was— I was—
John Milham (Host) · 41:09
I was—
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 41:10
I sat down at the computer and I typed that point, and I— it may be the steroids, John, but like, I just typed into Google at 3 AM, like, how do I become a doctor? No clear you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be a better surgeon, or I'm gonna go and be a nurse, or I'm gonna train as a physio. It's just like, oh, this is the thing I've been living in for 9 months. Like, how do I— how do people enter this world?
John Milham (Host) · 41:32
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 41:32
And then I parked it. I never looked at it again until a year and a half later. And I decided at that point, I— that I tried to work and go back to science communication, but it wasn't working. I needed to do something different. I took a year off. I let it all sink in. In. I opened my heart, I opened my mind, um, I— and I realized that I did want to go into this world. And then I had to think about how. So do I go in as a nurse? Do I go in as a psychologist? Do I go in as a doctor? The doctor thing made sense because I'd had the science background. I felt like I could probably cope. Um, but the key bit, John, was they seem to have a lot of the power. And it wasn't like, you know, an Elon Musk thing where I want power. It was like They call the shots, I think. And if I'm in that world and I learn their language and I learn how they learn how to interact with patients, I can tweak it as well as kind of be that person in the system to set about some changes. And so I Googled it and then sat the test and got a spot here in Sydney and did a 4-year graduate program in medicine.
John Milham (Host) · 42:41
Amazing. Of course, you know, I, on behalf of all of the people people who have ever been told to be a doctor by their sort of parents at some stage and have feared that test, I point out that you're triggering us and it's really annoying.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 43:00
Sorry, sorry, John.
John Milham (Host) · 43:01
Because you just throw it off and going, oh well, by Wednesday I was accepted as a doctor, right?
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 43:07
Well, look, John, I wish it was that simple. So I applied for the test. First of all, it costs a fortune, right? So you need a degree of money.
John Milham (Host) · 43:14
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 43:15
Um, that's what first struck me. And then I spent 8 weeks and I was just studying for that test.
John Milham (Host) · 43:21
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 43:21
Like, and that's not realistic for lots of people. And then I happened to get a score that was okay, you know, because, John, it's— the test is not about medicine. This is the other thing that struck me is I was analyzing poetry.
John Milham (Host) · 43:32
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 43:32
And I'm like, hang on a second, why am I analyzing poetry?
John Milham (Host) · 43:35
And of course, I've seen non-stop so many specialists like like, you know, hit me with, you know, the man from Snowy River just when I needed it, right?
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 43:44
So it's like, yeah, yeah, they're drawing from that exam.
John Milham (Host) · 43:50
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I could see the benefit of it. Um, so excited that you did because, um, and of course, uh, the, the book The Patient Doctor, I, you know, you know, I love that. Um, um, you know, medicine needs more puns for sure, right? So, and he talked about how your experience really informed your attitude, but not, you know, but at the same time, you're taking what is kind of a radical attitude into a traditional process, which is something I did not appreciate. It.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 44:34
I did not appreciate that. And some of that I think is like white guy confidence. So, yeah, like, you know, I'm a tall white guy, society's relatively easy, right? Um, and I think that's a part of the mobility I have to acknowledge here, like working-class roots, went to university, was able to travel, um, able to go into medicine. But even, even with my privilege, right, which we, we're more comfortable talking about now, I was very different from a lot of people sitting in that classroom on day one. Yeah, they came from like expensive postcodes. They went to private schools. They had private health insurance. Either their mom or their dad or both were doctors, right? And I like— they certainly didn't have any facial hair or like, you know, like, yeah, well, it was a graduate program, so there was a bit of, there was a bit of roughage around, right? They're a little bit older, they've done something else, but they, I guarantee you, there were very few people in that room that had been as ill or around illness to the degree that I was. I bet they were from families that didn't smoke, that weren't overweight, that didn't, that didn't, um, you know, have to worry about the gap at a specialist. It was really different. And so not only was my origin story different, but I had almost died, and I was learning about illness having been ill and still being a cancer patient, right? Still going to 3 monthly checkups. And I realized realized that the people that were selected for med school had nothing to do with the skills required to be a doctor. Yeah, yes, academic smarts, yes, the ability to memorize tests and textbooks for hours and hours and hours alone. Yes, that skill is more than overrepresented at med school, but all the other stuff that matters to people that are being healed is not selected for. And I, John, I gave them the benefit of the doubt, and I thought after my first week 'Um, it'll be okay because they're going to teach us that stuff.' I didn't need to learn it, but I needed to shape it. I wasn't that arrogant, but a lot of the people in that room needed it, and it didn't come, John. It didn't come. And, and instead of, instead of empathy and listening and communication and teamwork and leadership, it was anatomy and physiology and pharmacology prizes. And I just I just was flabbergasted that they set off this path where they select this really odd group of people that do not represent society.
John Milham (Host) · 47:02
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 47:02
And then make them even less representative, right? Make them even less represent— and create distance.
John Milham (Host) · 47:09
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 47:10
Enforce, put in concrete the distance between them and the people they would be healing.
John Milham (Host) · 47:16
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 47:17
I just couldn't believe it, John. And I went to the literature again because that's the pattern. And I, I looked it up in PubMed and paper after paper after paper from around the world had found this in every medical school ever examined. And I'm like, this is— they've known this for 30 years and they're still teaching medicine this way. And as a patient, I saw firsthand where some of the things I'd seen in the system that doctors and nurses did in hospital, I saw where it started now. I saw the seeds of these behaviors. I saw the seeds of these attitudes.— and it was heartbreaking.
John Milham (Host) · 47:53
Yeah, I, um, uh, like it, it— I'm, you know, vibrating with resonance on that, right? The sense of, um, you know, I thought that they had a special, um, program that, that, you know, trained arrogance into specialists, right? So, um, and I get it, right? There's that sense of, you know, godlike power because, you know, for the talent and intelligence Yep. But none of— but the healing, they don't heal. Like, as a doctor, you don't heal, the person heals.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 48:23
Yeah, yeah, you definitely help.
John Milham (Host) · 48:25
And yeah, yeah, you're like, you're providing that, that, the, the tools and, and, and environment and, and, and the relationship and the relationship. So, you know, so, so I've always wondered about professional distance, right? The sense of like, you know, how is professional distance an aid Yeah, you're right.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 48:46
Doctors, doctors have been really late to the game here. I mean, there's loads of reasons that medicine is so hierarchical, patriarchal, um, you know, strict and conservative. Lots of reasons for that. Um, and, and they're— they lead to what, what you're describing. Uh, it's funny, when I get up and do talks, you know, people like will say, oh, but I can't, I can't I can't connect because I will burn out or I will lose myself. And I just do a simple thought experiment. If you imagine I was a nurse and you're saying to me, don't get too close, don't get too close to patients, don't connect too much, don't ask them what matters. No one would ever think of doing that because nurses are the carers, right? They're the ones, psychologists, social workers, peer workers, right? In the mental health space, these people connect. And they know how to connect in a way that's therapeutic and protects themselves. Yeah, but also gives them job satisfaction and purpose and efficacy. Doctors, doctors have hidden far too long behind this idea that they need to be on the other side of the desk in a white coat and it's us and them. And I just think there's so much we could do to our own humanity in order to aid the humanity of the people we're healing. And I think I think that you're right about the arrogance thing. It's not that it's taught, it's definitely modeled, but it's reinforced is the problem. And we are kind of, you know, we pride ourselves on the knowledge that we have and it's tested all the time under stupid hostile conditions. And the thing that I learned when I went to med school, right, is I wasn't angry at my colleagues, I, I felt sorry for them, and I felt sorry for the system. And what I realized was that you get to the end of your medical training— you know, I'm in my 11th year, I'm still a junior doctor— you get to your 11th year and the sacrifice is enormous.
John Milham (Host) · 50:47
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 50:47
And so people then get pumped out as specialists, having given up so much of themselves to the system that they almost feel owed Yeah. And if they had connected throughout that journey with the people that were healing and each other in deep, deep ways, but also had fought for a system that treated them like people, yeah, it wouldn't be like that.
John Milham (Host) · 51:11
No, no. Wow, that's such an insight. I, I love that, connecting that back to, you know, something you said earlier about finding, um, out more about other ways of healing, right? So when you were introduced to an energy healer, right? Yeah. So like, and you mentioned Indi— you know, uh, non-traditional, non-white ways of healing and so on. You would have seen that with Chinese medicine. And of course, so there's— there are modalities out there that don't owe anything to that traditional model. So how, how do you, you know, how do you bring that into your world, right? You know, you being more understanding that there's more The thing that I learned—
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 51:53
so I had an amazing, um, hands-off energetic healer. It probably belongs to the family of healing they call kinesiology. Yeah. Um, look, and there were pictures of, you know, meridians and chakras up on the walls and bits of anatomy with labels. Um, the thing I really— I didn't, I didn't buy into that because it, you know, I've seen the randomized control trials that that stuff doesn't help.
John Milham (Host) · 52:16
Scientific method. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 52:18
But those spaces are healing. Yeah, those relationships are healing. And what I realized— you walk— I walked into the Energetic Healers Clinic. Yeah, there's a salt lamp, there's a couch. It's not a bit of plastic that's, you know, doused in bleach every 3 days. There's a couch to sit on, there's reading material, there's nice music playing. Um, I don't have to wait an hour. You know, she's on time.
John Milham (Host) · 52:47
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 52:47
Um, she came out, she would greet me, she— we would sit down at a table and talk.
John Milham (Host) · 52:51
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 52:52
And she was as interested in, you know, where I grew up and what my goals were and what my fears were as she was understanding where the cancer was and which energy system she would use to manipulate it, right? And these are hands-off therapies. She didn't touch me, so I don't have that placebo effect. But then I'm down on a bed and I'm vulnerable and I'm fully clothed, so it's not like the vulnerability you get on a CT machine or in an operating theater. I'm as vulnerable, and she's talking, she's talking to me as a person, and there's a power difference and there's a knowledge difference, and I'm paying her, so there's a commercial relationship. But that's all used, yeah, wow, to the benefit of the person that's recovering. And I just feel like in hospitals, again, speak to this design thing, we've forgotten that people come in and use them. Them, and we've forgotten that people come in and work in them. And you know, you know, John, you go to some hospitals, there's no mobile phone reception. Like, you don't know how, how many hours the doctor is going to be. You don't know if it's going to be your doctor or another doctor. There's some basic stuff to do with just—
John Milham (Host) · 54:00
even the beds are uncomfortable, right? They don't—
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 54:03
like, they're horrible. And don't get me started on gowns. You know, you've heard me talk about gowns. Don't get me started on the basic stuff that we just don't seem to have engineered We've lost track of the fact that— and again, John, I think it's a fear of like, well, if we borrow from some of what the other healers are doing, you know, we're compromising our professionalism, we're compromising our standards. No, you're building an environment built for purpose. It's built for purpose.
John Milham (Host) · 54:30
Yeah. And I love that idea, you know, going back to my— you know, this is about me, sorry, but the idea of integrating, right? The environment of healing, it helps the mind, the body, and the energy, the soul, however you put it, helps it all come together so that the person is maximized. And of course, the people who are bringing the resources, like doctors and nurses and stuff, need that to all come together, right? So they need the patient to feel better as well as be better, you know.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 55:11
Absolutely. And that's, that they're, they're, they're equally important.
John Milham (Host) · 55:14
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 55:15
They're equally important because the feeling side of it is the thing. And you've alluded to this. It's the thing that lingers. Yeah. I don't remember, I remember some of the physical pain after my operation, but I don't remember the operation.
John Milham (Host) · 55:26
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 55:27
I don't remember the exact detail of the chemo. I remember how I felt laying in the chemo chair, talking to other people with cancer, right? It's the feelings that linger and they can be positive or they can be negative or destructive. And that's when it gets into complaint territory and you start avoiding hospital systems. You feel alienated from those spaces because they're harmful, right? They can harm. And that's a lot of the time I felt like not only was the system not built to care, it was designed to harm. And that just seemed extraordinary to me because, John, I've just come from a year working in a pediatric hospital. Wow. They get it.
John Milham (Host) · 56:05
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 56:05
Like there's art on the walls. They're not all beige. They have people that come around and talk about other stuff and play instruments and design board games and help you color in. They understand that color and light and air and having gardens and spaces and playrooms matter. There's absolutely no reason we can't build adult hospitals like this. And it's not infantilizing the adult patient, but there's a degree of regression when you're sick. Sick, right? And I'm in a bed and my parents are standing over me. Like, it's, it's the same thing. Like, we can acknowledge that without exploiting it, and we can use it.
John Milham (Host) · 56:43
Yeah. So power— the powerlessness of illness is very similar to the powerlessness of infancy.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 56:51
Yeah. And I don't think that's a dirty concept. No, I think it's a concept that we should actually fully embrace.
John Milham (Host) · 56:56
Yeah, absolutely. Um, I love That, of course, uniquely positioned to be an expert on your experience. And you brought so much of yourself, your power of observation and your scientific understanding to your experience. And of course, that's now translated in how you are both influencing healthcare and delivering it yourself, right? Which is Amazing. So first of all, I'd ask, I need to take the opportunity to ask, what do you think patients should do to maximize their outcomes?
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 57:37
Yeah, so that is, this is a hard question because it almost needs to be in, I think, the phase of healthcare reform that we're in. It's almost idealistic because it's aspirational and that's okay because at the moment, and because I straddle these two worlds. The system isn't really built to fully embrace what patients want, to be honest. Um, I don't think that would come to a surprise anyone that's listening that's had health issues. Um, I think they— oh, look, there's some simple things, you know, if we break it down quite pragmatically. Um, there's— I don't tell my patients not to Google. I think trying to pretend that medicine's in some kind of academic vacuum is ridiculous, particularly when, like, you can put pathology results into ChatGPT and get some analysis, right? Yeah, like the age that we're the guardians of knowledge is gone. And, and my hope, John, is that actually that allows us to restore the humanity. My fear, my fear is we all just get swept up in an AI tsunami and we get further from the humanity. But that's a whole other podcast. So it's, it's look, look around for information. You would never do something as complicated as sign up for a surgery, if you substitute it in any other decision in your life without a second opinion.
John Milham (Host) · 59:01
Yeah, yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 59:01
I tell everybody you should at least get two, if not three. What I realized having crossed over is that they're humans, yeah, learning things and then forming an opinion. The theater of the desk and the waiting room and the waiting time and the fee makes you feel like it's expert consensus.
John Milham (Host) · 59:21
Yeah, yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 59:22
But it rarely is. It's opinion, and you should get another one always. Um, that's not always practical, and I get that that's expensive. And that opinion actually might not be necessarily a doctor, but it might be something online, it might be a study, it might be a blog, it might be some lived experience, right? But you gotta, you gotta use other sources of information. Um, it's hard, but always have someone with you. So take people to appointments, even if you think it's going to be a boring routine appointment. You don't know what's coming, and if something comes and it destabilizes you, you're going to wish you had a second pair of eyes and ears there. At the minimum, you're going to wish that you had someone afterwards to go and have a cup of coffee with and process what happened, right? Um, I write, I keep a journal. So when I'm going through an acute illness phase, like, I write down my appointments, I write down questions I might have, because I, just like anyone else, John, despite my years of medical training after a colonoscopy, I've had anesthetic, I'm nervous about the outcome, I've got a fear of the surgeon because they have so much power. I get nervous and I forget things. So I write them down and I let my person, my carer, know the questions I'm interested in so that if I forget, they can ask. I think there's like, but what we don't do is we don't actually build these things into the medical model. You've gotta do them and it can feel like you're being an inconvenience. Like, really, like, if you tell your doctor you're going to get a second opinion, you can often feel like you've committed a crime, right? And it shouldn't be like that. These things should be standard. We should be— actually, every doctor should be telling every patient, you need someone here. I expect questions written down. I want you to get a second opinion.
John Milham (Host) · 1:01:04
Yeah, brilliant. Do you think patients need to take owner control, like ownership of their outcomes?
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 1:01:13
So I think that's tricky. I'd be interested in your view on it. I think, I think again, it's going to depend on the person. It's going to depend on their preferences, and it's going to depend on the illness. Um, some, some things you have to relinquish. Some things you have to relinquish. Yeah, like I, I would— I, I didn't expect to be driving the bus for my care.
John Milham (Host) · 1:01:37
Yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 1:01:38
Um, But I expected to have a seat in there.
John Milham (Host) · 1:01:40
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 1:01:40
That's what I wanted. To be at least consulted. And not left behind at the petrol station. Like, that's what I wanted. Some people want to drive. And I think that's okay. And I think the system has to be built up for multiple ways to navigate that. This comes down to actually the system asking people what they want, which they don't do. We don't say to people, or like, you know, a basic psychological screener. When you enter a new illness experience or a recovery journey. Just like, what are your preferences? What are your traits? What are your expectations? And John, that's the first step. And then you match that with the illness, the provider, the clinic, the outpatient clinic where you are. And I think that's the fit, right? This is a really individual approach and you'll hear lots about patient-centered care and you'll see billboard after advertisement in the hospital walkways about patient-centered care. But really it's just marketing. Speak at this stage. To actually be patient-centered, you'd be doing the things you and I are talking about.
John Milham (Host) · 1:02:44
And I also wonder sometimes about the role of patients educating medical providers, nurses and doctors. Right. I think there's a place for some of that.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 1:02:57
So, John, you are spot on the money. So my other thing when I went to med school was that one, I saw the people selected were not representative, and then that difference was reinforced. The second big thing where were the bloody patients? Like, they weren't there at med school as— and I wanted like patient professors, right? Like, I wanted them there in the school where we're learning about medicine. I wanted them called professors. I wanted them respected as educators, and I wanted their material assessed, right? I wanted Jane's experience of breast cancer and some of the things she felt examined because What I sadly learned at med school is unless you test it, they won't learn it. And then they tried to tell me that, well, once you're a student and you're out in the wards, you'll be on ward rounds and they're patient-empowered environments and they're friendly and they're not. I mean, getting grilled about my understanding of the immune system over someone's bed who's got cancer is not nice for me or them. And also get then on the ward round knowing that there's 20 more people to see and everybody's late. Getting Jane to tell the students, so Jane, tell them what it's like to have breast cancer, is not patient-centered education. I wanted them everywhere. And I think we have a fear of embracing that experience. It's— psychiatry does a pretty good job of lived experience and peer worker engagement, right, and co-design. All the other specialties are miles behind in terms of opening themselves to lived experience as a form of teaching.
John Milham (Host) · 1:04:31
Yeah, absolutely brilliant idea. There are two, probably two questions. Look, I acknowledge your time today. It's been amazing. Two questions, one, two big questions, probably, you know, deserve a podcast on its own. The first one is about you. How do you see yourself moving forward? Is this a mission, a dual mission that you have to be someone who cares for the community in two ways. First of all, provide the care directly and also change how care is provided. Is that your future?
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 1:05:10
Yeah, I think so. That's nicely summarized. I might hit you up to write that down for me next time because I've never actually described it so succinctly. I think that is exactly, exactly it, right? It's like being in the system providing care while changing it. And look, there are lots of doctors that come into the system and then leave and then write about these things, but I've got to be in it. My heart's in public healthcare, it's in a public hospital, it's inside a hospital, right, which, which was where lots of care has to occur, and it's also where lots of harm can occur. And so that's my setting. I'm in the pointy end, I'm delivering care, and I don't— like, be honest with you, John, like, I don't get to deliver the kind of care I want to all the time because I'm in a system that doesn't always reward those behaviors. You know, when I do my performance reviews, no one's asking the patients I've cared for how I went. They're asking me how I did.
John Milham (Host) · 1:06:05
360-degree feedback has a bit of a hole, which is what do the patients think about you.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 1:06:09
It has. Not only that, John, they don't even ask my colleagues what they think of working with me. It's so weird here. It's archaic, right? It's like the 1950s. So you've got to change manage it while providing care. 100% my agenda.
John Milham (Host) · 1:06:21
Wow, that's beautiful. And then of course, the challenge is what do you feel is possible for the future of the system? Can it respond to the voices like yourself and others and the patient movement? Can it actually change? Can it be something better?
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 1:06:41
Yep, 100%. I'm so optimistic. And John, there's examples from around the state, we're recording this in New South Wales, from around the state, from around the country, and from around the world. The thing is, thanks for not asking me the trap question, which is what's the one thing you'd change? 'Cause there is no one thing, right? And you know that, you know that.
John Milham (Host) · 1:07:01
It's gotta be a few more things than one.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 1:07:03
Yeah, you'd be surprised how many people ask me that. Go on, Ben, what's the one thing? It's like, there's no one thing. And also, the one thing at a hospital in Wagga Wagga is not gonna be the one thing at a hospital in Melbourne, right? And what we're increasingly realizing is that there can be the small things that can happen at scale with, from, from people who have the answers, and they are the people providing care and the people receiving care. And when they're together at a table with a mutual understanding and respect, thinking about a problem from each of their perspectives, that, that's the money. And those initiatives you see springing up around the place are amazing. You know, there's a great program in Western Sydney where they asked people who have to spend time in emergency departments, and you know this is in the news all the time, how long you have to spend in an emergency department. They asked people who wait around in emergency departments, what could we do here in the waiting room to make things better? And it was simple stuff, John, like a mobile phone charging station.
John Milham (Host) · 1:08:06
Yeah, wow.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 1:08:07
Some updates. Update from the person behind the glass wall who seems scared of us.
John Milham (Host) · 1:08:11
Yeah, yeah.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 1:08:12
Some update from them.
John Milham (Host) · 1:08:13
Who refuses to look you in the eye.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 1:08:15
Look at that. Some update from them every now and then about how long it might be. We know it might be 2 more hours, but just tell us. Patient liaisons at the door, right? So over that way is triage, then you're going to have to take a seat here. The doctors will come out of this door. Modules in different languages.— very important. These are the things happening around you. Here's how the system works in your language. iPads to look at if your phone dies. Something to do in the waiting room. An ability to fill up your water bottle. John, this stuff is not going to come from AI. This is going to come from remembering that there's people in a room who are trying to feel better and don't want to be harmed while they do that. And it's so simple, John, and that's why I'm hopeful because there's some low low-hanging fruit in healthcare, and it's cheap. It just needs will. And slowly, the people coming through the doctor pipeline are no longer prepared to put up with how the system was. And certainly, the people coming in through the front door ill are no longer prepared to put up with how it was. And that tension, right, will be where the change comes from.
John Milham (Host) · 1:09:27
Oh wow, that is an outstanding answer for a very, very challenging problem, but I really look forward to it. Ben, it's been incredibly inspiring to talk to you. By the way, congratulations on the book, The Patient Doctor, because not only is it such an important subject, I really enjoyed your writing, mate. So you're like—
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 1:09:50
oh, thank you.
John Milham (Host) · 1:09:51
You must have done well on the poetry and English section of the book.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 1:09:55
It was my best mark, John.
John Milham (Host) · 1:09:57
Because the writing is beautiful.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 1:09:59
Thank you.
John Milham (Host) · 1:10:00
And it really connected to somebody who's, um, is, you know, who's been in the system a bit. So, um, congratulations. Uh, thank you so much for, for, for, uh, joining us on Katsuki Heroes Stories That Matter. It really does— your story really does matter, and I am so excited to see you go on and, uh, and make all that difference in the in the system. Awesome stuff, mate. Thank you.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 1:10:26
Thank you, John. I've absolutely loved talking to you, buddy.
John Milham (Host) · 1:10:29
Champion. Cheers. Thank you for listening to this episode of Kintsugi Heroes. Thank you to Colin Lilly for permission to use Broken as our theme music for this series.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 1:10:47
If you enjoyed this conversation share the podcast with a friend, and let us know by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
John Milham (Host) · 1:10:59
If you'd like to support Kintsugi Heroes and the stories we share, head to kintsugiheroes.com.au and follow the instructions to make a tax-deductible donation.
Ben Bravery (Guest) · 1:11:10
Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time.
You don't have to be in crisis to call.
Subscribe
Spotify
Apple