To celebrate turning 40 Years Strong, the RBWH Foundation has launched a truly extraordinary project: 40 Strong Stories with much-loved Brisbane author and our inaugural Artist in Residence Nick Earls.
Before becoming a best-selling novelist, Nick was a fifth-year medical student at Royal Brisbane Hospital in 1985—the same year the RBWH Foundation was established. A passion for words, not wards, led him to trade his stethoscope for storytelling, and four decades later, he’s returned to chronicle 40 Strong Stories about the dedicated people who’ve shaped our history.
The resulting collection, ‘Lady Lamington’s Trowel & other short stories’, is an extraordinary showcase of resilience, generosity, ingenuity and the RBWH Foundation.
(Picture above L-R: Chapter 12: Parents Zoe and Amy Armatage, with toddler Kaia and baby Eden; Chapter 32: RBWH gardener Barbara Smithson; Chapter 37: Gynaecological Oncologist Professor Andreas Obermair)
A new chapter is released online each week. Read or listen along as Nick narrates these powerful tributes to the passion and dedication of medical staff, researchers, patients and donors from RBWH; the Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service (STARS) and Redcliffe Hospital: all who have been touched by the extraordinary power of giving to research and patient care.
Sign up to Nick’s News , delivered weekly to your inbox, so you never miss an episode.
Many of those featured in 40 Strong Stories gathered recently for A Night with Nick to launch this extraordinary project. The evening featured a selection of stunning portraits by Olivia Cameron Photography and a heartfelt panel discussion hosted by 612 ABC Radio Brisbane Afternoons host Kat Feeney. Event sponsors included Australian Unity, the Sunshine Coast’s Woombye Cheese Company and Granite Belt’s Art of Krupinski wines.
