Scotch College

Mediating on life's lessons learned

Meditating on life's lessons learned

Twice a day, Dr Rob Moodie ('70) tries to make the time to meditate. It's not that he actually has enough time in a 12 or 13-hour working day to sit back and relax for 15 minutes or so; it's that he's driven to it because he believes so strongly in making a commitment to his own mental health. He even attends an annual meditation retreat - a 10 day meditation retreat.

Pictured: Dr Rob Moodie

"Meditation revitalises me when I'm tired from overwork," he says. "I've learned that it's important to look after myself to preserve my mental energy."

Currently Chief Executive Officer of VicHealth, an organisation promoting the health of Victorians, Rob landed back in his home town of Melbourne four years ago.

He took on a job that placed him behind a desk for much longer than he had spent behind any desk during the previous 15 years.

"I wanted to work in a field I'm very interested in, and it was a big bonus that I could do it in Melbourne, where there's a great lifestyle for my family," he says.

Rob and his wife Anne have a son, Nick,17, and a daughter, Penny who is 15 ("our greatest achievements," according to Rob).

Previous appointments have included work at refugee camps in Sudan, medical coordinator for Medecins sans Frontieres, and stints with the World Health Organisation and the United Nations, where he was Director of the Department of Country Support for UNAIDS in Geneva. In UNAIDS,

Rob helped coordinate AIDS programs in 100 countries. On a previous "visit" to Melbourne, he was Director of the International Health Unit at the Macfarlane Burnet Centre, from 1992 to 1995.

Have those appointments and others stood him in good stead for his current VicHealth role? "Undoubtedly," he says. "When the going gets tough, you learn the most. Fifteen years ago in the Sudanese refugee camp I often felt overwhelmed by the problems we were facing. I'll always be able to draw strength from the management experiences I and my colleagues had in Sudan."

After four years at VicHealth, Rob is excited about some real successes. "We switched our focus from sponsoring elite sport to encouraging Victorians to participate in sport, and the results are starting to be seen. Look at the number of Victorians who participated in the Masters Games, for example.

Our challenge is to maintain these high levels of participation."

Rob himself participated in the Games rugby competition, together with former Old Scotch Collegians Hamish Ewing, Campbell Thomson and Mike Tuckfield, and collected a silver medal. ("Don't know how we earned that - we only won one game out of four!" he laughs.)

Rob says one of the other major successes for VicHealth has been to get the message over about the importance of a healthy mental state at school, in the workplace, and at home.

"If you feel good about yourself, you're less likely to resort to tobacco, alcohol or drugs as a crutch," he says. "I think we're at the cutting edge globally with what we're doing in this area."

What about the politics of the job? "Well, health is politics, like it or not," Rob says. "I've certainly learned from my mistakes - to communicate more effectively, and to plan better."

Now that he's back where it all started, Rob shows no signs of slowing up. "Probably I overwork, although I try to keep it all to a dull roar. And I always try to make an investment in my own mental and physical health."

David Ashton