Profile: Ainslie Cahill AM

Who’s who in SPHERE

Ainslie Cahill AM

Ainslie Cahill AM, Leader of SPHERE’s Consumer and Community Involvement and Engagement Strategic Platform is a woman with a mission, one that has spanned multiple roles and organisations but always with the same focus: to ensure consumer and community involvement becomes firmly embedded into health and medical research.

We sat down to chat with Ainslie Cahill and discovered a list of incredible professional achievements as well as a rich personal life filled with a love of family, friends, good food and great wine.

Describe your role and goals as Leader of SPHERE’s Consumer and Community Involvement and Engagement Strategic Platform.

My role is to guide and support our Clinical Academic Groups and Platforms with incorporating consumer and community involvement into their day-to-day work.

In this role, my primary goal is to witness consumer and community involvement as a natural part of health and medical research – from start to finish – and in a continuous cycle.

In addition to your role in SPHERE, you have a long history in consumer and community engagement, can you highlight your greatest achievements in this field?

When I worked as CEO of Arthritis Australia, we created national conversations/surveys with people living with arthritis and their carers to understand what was important to them. Their responses – followed by that of their health professionals – changed the way Arthritis Australia prioritised its strategy and actions including education services, information resources and state/ federal government advocacy.

Surprisingly, this style of consumer and community consultation and involvement was a first for this longstanding health consumer organisation which, up until then, was influenced by health medical researchers, the pharmaceutical industry and health professionals.

Why are you passionate about consumer and community engagement?

I get enormous satisfaction from giving vulnerable people a voice which they may not necessarily feel they have; presenting health consumers and

“While there has been tremendous progress in consumer and community involvement in health and medical research, we still need to move from an ‘I have to tick the box’ mentality to one that genuinely understands and recognises the importance of collaboration.”

community (patients and carers) with information and resources which give them a better understanding of their condition and how to manage it; and taking their needs to state/territory parliamentarians and government officials – ultimately, achieving results on their behalf.

What do we still have to improve to ensure that consumers and communities are better represented in research?

While there has been tremendous progress in consumer and community involvement in health and medical research, we still need to move from an ‘I have to tick the box’ mentality to one that genuinely understands and recognises the importance of collaboration. This will result in high quality and cost-effective health and medical research, which is relevant and beneficial to health consumers, community, the health system/health services.

What are your greatest professional achievements?

Bringing teams of people together from different disciplines and organisations to collaborate and deliver targeted musculoskeletal projects and programs that have been formally recognised across Australia and internationally. This united approach resulted in Arthritis Australia being commissioned by the Australian Government Department of Health, at the request of the then Health Minister, to develop a National Strategic Action Plan for Arthritis.

Also, peer recognition of my voluntary and professional health consumer advocacy has resulted in Life Membership of Consumers Health Forum of Australia, Life Membership of Arthritis Australia, and an Order of Australia (AM).

Putting your professional life aside, what can you tell us about the personal side of Ainslie Cahill? What makes you tick?

My favourite ingredients for purposeful living are people, relationships, good food and Barossa Valley shiraz – when I mix them all together, my life is rewarding, full of fun and fulfilled.

My greatest achievement is maintaining loving and enduring relationships. I have family and friends around the world and make a point of keeping in touch and, occasionally, visiting them (or vice versa). My friends include some from Grade 1 at primary school, a New Jersey USA penfriend with whom I was matched at aged 10 and others I met on my first day of high school.

Every year my husband, Woody and I spend two-to-three weeks in Perth, including Christmas Day with all The Cahill Clan (my side of the family). We can have up to 30 people – and sometimes as few as 14 - made up of three generations plus the occasional ‘waif or stray’. We eat too much, drink too much, talk over each other, laugh a lot, play ‘parlour’ games (albeit outdoors), have intermittent dips in the swimming pool and finish off with singing and dancing.

Is there anything else people would be surprised to know about you?

I was born in Kalgoorlie Western Australia. We lived in Boulder and my father worked on the Golden Mile Mine. Our family moved to Perth when I was 18 months old and I didn’t return until I was 38. At that time, Woody and I drove my parents to The Goldfields so they could give me a ‘personal guided tour’ of our family history and connections. It was a wonderful experience.

When I was 21, and on a working holiday in London, I was employed Monday to Friday as a secretary in the Lord Chancellor’s Office, House of Lords (Parliament) and on weekends was breakfast cook/dishwasher at the Royal College of Surgeons where the entitled, albeit larrikin, Australian resident students caused me some grief (needless to say, I gave as good as I got!).

In 1977, I began working with Ita Buttrose – she was 35 and I was 23. Over the years I have undertaken a variety of roles with her and for several companies (Private Assistant, National Special Events Manager, General Manager and CEO). Ita and I have forged a brilliant and unique relationship (boss, mentor, and friend) and have many common interests, including a passion for health consumer advocacy.

I have competed in four City to Surf events, running non-stop from start to finish. These days, I could walk nonstop from start to finish but that’s as good as it gets.

Working with internationallyrenowned author, Morris West, I completed a film production course at the Australian Film and Television School. A few years later, I declined a job offer in Hollywood, because I had met and fallen in love with my, later to be, husband. No regrets – we’re still happy and still looking forward together.