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7 minute read
Inspiration and learnings from our CEO's own journey in the rural health landscape
What’s in this article
Here we chat with Rural Doctors Foundation CEO, Fran Avon, about her own story. Find out why she is so passionate about supporting rural communities and her journey to joining the Foundation.
Rural Doctors Foundation has evolved under the direction of Fran Avon. She took on the role of CEO in February 2021 and immediately began looking to expand the Queensland-based charity into a nationally focused initiative. She was determined to shine a spotlight on the healthcare challenges faced in rural communities all over Australia.
Fran has built a team that share her passion for the cause and set Rural Doctors Foundation on a course that she hopes will see real change for rural Australians.
“My hope for the Foundation is that we have a positive impact on the health of every person living in a rural or remote community. Currently, we’re having impact for a small number of rural and remote communities, and I just want to see that grow, to enable those living in all rural and remote communities across Australia to have the best healthcare they can,” she says.
If you’ve seen her speak at a conference or heard her interviewed on radio, you’d know that this is more than just a job to Fran. It’s a calling. And as it would turn out, it’s something she has been preparing for her whole career.
A rewarding career in the not-for-profit sector
After graduating university with a research job, Fran quickly found her niche in marketing. Working initially in a consultancy role that worked with corporates, she eventually fell into the not-for-profit space and has never looked back.“I realised the not-for-profit sector was for me, I found it very rewarding,” she says, reflecting on the move into more community-minded ventures.
It all started with a job at Wesley Mission. Fran looks back on those twelve years with fondness. She recalls the many lessons she learned in her time there and the chance to grow as she was constantly pushed out of her comfort zone. “I had an amazing manager who gave me so many opportunities,” she says.
Every time they handed her a new portfolio to manage, she saw it as a chance to develop new skills and understanding, even if it was something she had limited experience in. This ability to adapt is a skill Fran has used to the benefit of Rural Doctors Foundation, in a versatile role where she wears many hats and juggles many moving pieces.
By the end of her time at the Wesley Mission, Fran was managing a team of 80 people. She’d played a pivotal role in an organisation that was helping to change the lives of Australians in need, and she’d continue to do that in her next job too.
“I decided to try something completely different, and I went to Darwin to take up the role of CEO of St Vincent de Paul Society in the Northern Territory.”
From sprawling Sydney to the red soil of Darwin
Fran credits the two years spent in the Northern Territory as being an eye-opener to the issues faced by rural communities when it comes to healthcare.
“I think it shaped my understanding of how difficult it is to live so remotely,” she explains. “Although I was in Darwin, it still was a long way from anywhere else. And even though we had all the amenities in Darwin, there was a bit of an expression there – ‘In pain, get on a plane’ – because obviously the quality of the healthcare was not as good as what you’d get in a larger centre.”
In her time as CEO at St Vincent de Paul Society, she recalls experiencing the healthcare challenges firsthand. “I spent a lot of time travelling from Darwin to Katherine to Tennant Creek to Alice Springs, and back up again,” she says, recalling visits to some of the day centres they ran in rural townships. There she witnessed the poor health experienced by many people in the outback and the need for more support in remote settlements.
After two years, Fran moved back to the east coast, and it took her on a path that would eventually lead her to the Rural Doctors Foundation.
Quiet lessons along the way
Fran is a determined woman, always aiming high and on a mission for change. But she never misses the quiet lessons along the way. “My first not-for-profit role taught me to be very grateful for what I have. We always used to say at Wesley Mission: ‘there but for the grace of God go I’,” she says, explaining how blessed she feels in her day-to-day life.
She talks about feeling grateful for her health, for her husband, to have a job she is passionate about and most importantly, to have healthy (and happy) children (although they are all adults now).
As Fran points out, health plays a pivotal role in the rest of our lives – poor health can impact out mindset, our job prospects, our housing and our family. “This role reinforced for me the importance of good health. If you don’t have good health, there’s so many other things that you don’t have.”
Finding inspiration
When it comes to finding inspiration, Fran doesn’t have to look far. There are two women, she says, who have had a huge impact on who she is and who she wants to be.
“I’ve got two friends in particular that have just not got a break,” she reveals, explaining how they have faced health issues, loss of loved ones, and other personal challenges in their lives. “But both of them are so resilient, so positive, they just keep getting up every day despite some horrible knocks.”
“They are so caring for other people,” she adds. “They are just such good friends to me that I feel very inadequate when I think about what I do to help other people. I just think, my gosh these two women are absolutely amazing. I won’t name them because they won’t want to be named. But they’re the sort of people that inspire me – those people that just keep showing up every single day, despite what’s going on in their lives.”
Fran’s happy place
When she’s not busy working, you’ll most likely find Fran in the pool or down at the ocean near her home.
“The water is my happy place, I love the ocean.”
For at least six months of the year, Fran describes how she starts her day with a bike ride and an ocean swim.
“It’s just so easy to do that at 6am because the water is so warm, and that’s what I love about living here. I’ve always wanted to live near the water.”
Of course, sometimes she’ll simply walk down and sit by the waterfront with her husband, Ben.
Ben has been a loving and stable foundation for Fran, and their two grown-up children, Jake and Grace. He embodies the qualities she appreciates most in those close to her: “I like down-to-earth people, I like people that wear their heart on their sleeve, that care and care deeply, they’re the kind of people that I respond to.”
But most importantly, he makes her laugh, with the quirky sense of humour that Fran values above all.
Lauren Furey is Communications Officer at Rural Doctors Foundation. She understands the joys and challenges of living in a rural community and believes that all Australians, regardless of location, deserve access to high-quality health services.
