Richard Fidler

1 week ago | abc.net.au | Carmel Rooney |Meggie Morris |Richard Fidler

For Professor Kelvin Kong, the ear is our most beautiful organ. It's vital to how many of us understand each other, and how we understand ourselves. The Worimi man is the third doctor in his family, and is now an ENT surgeon at the forefront of medical innovation. He performs highly intricate lifesaving procedures, and also more simple medical interventions that are equally as impactful, because by tending to untreated ear disease in children, he can change the entire trajectory of their lives.

1 week ago | abc.net.au | Carmel Rooney |Meggie Morris |Alice Moldovan |Richard Fidler

In 2018, Dr Bo Remenyi was made the Northern Territory’s Australian of the Year for her work as a paediatric cardiologist. But her path to receiving that honour,  and to her work in remote communities, has been filled with unexpected twists and risks. After escaping communist Hungary as a child, she got her first job flipping burgers in a Townsville Hungary Jacks. From there, she put herself through medical school by cleaning the very lecture theatres in which she was studying.

2 weeks ago | abc.net.au | Nicola Harrison |Richard Fidler

Novelist Stella Maria Miles Franklin had an unexpected chapter in her own life after publishing her famous novel My Brilliant Career. In 1903 she became a 'girl stunt reporter', going undercover as a servant. For a year, she lived as a maid in Sydney and Melbourne's wealthy houses and wrote about the humiliations and drudgery in the daily lives of servant girls, or 'slaveys'.

2 weeks ago | abc.net.au | Nicola Harrison |Alice Moldovan |Richard Fidler

Morris Stuart met his Australian wife, Barbara in London in the 1960s. The pair led a youth group attached to a nearby church, and initially tried to ignore their growing feelings for each other. Morris was a young, Guyanese activist who was descended from African slaves, and wasn’t ready to face the social reality of marrying across racial lines. Morris and Barb fell in love and married several years before the film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

2 weeks ago | abc.net.au | Nicola Harrison |Richard Fidler

Nature writer, Andrew Darby spent more than 20 years as a Fairfax correspondent based in Tasmania. His stories involved the natural beauty of the bush, including visits to wild places and to the people who protect them, but it was deadline-driven and he couldn’t spend the time he wanted to. In 2017 Andrew was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. He underwent immunotherapy and was given a maximum 18-months to live. It has been eight years since he entered his “second life”.