Dr Norelle Lickiss AO is an Australian medical doctor and emeritus professor with a highly distinguished international career. In 1970 she was one of the first academic medical staff of the University of Tasmania medical school and Royal Hobart Hospital, with special interests in cancer medicine and epidemiology, and in geriatric medicine which she introduced into the medical curriculum after visiting centres of excellence in UK. From 1985 she worked as staff physician (and clinical academic and department head) at teaching hospitals in Sydney until 2009 (mainly, but not only in relation to cancer patients), and established the Sydney Institute of Palliative Medicine and within it a specialist training program. She was consultant to WHO (1996) concerning cancer pain relief in China, consultant to the Indonesian and Iranian government (concerning cancer services), Visiting Professor in China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Iran, and lectured also in Harvard medical school and several European Countries, including The Netherlands and Belgium, and in Argentina. Dr Lickiss is a medical academic who has undertaken a variety of scholarly activities during her career that span the full spectrum of health care. She has a long standing interest in the humanities, notably philosophy, and in interdisciplinary activities, particularly in the concept that persons from diverse intellectual backgrounds working together may enrich understanding of problematic aspects of the human condition.