Lucinda Nolan fighting the good fight against ovarian cancer
Lucinda Nolan has dedicated most of her professional life to public service and giving back to the community, but her latest role is far more personal.
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Lucinda Nolan has dedicated most of her professional life to public service and giving back to the community. But her latest role, as chief executive officer of the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation, is her most personal.
Nolan, who lost her sister-in-law Jane, 54, to the insidious disease six years ago, has made it her mission to raise awareness and funds for research into early detection.
While she gained huge satisfaction from roles at Victoria Police, spending 32 years in the force and rising to deputy commissioner before becoming the first female chief executive of the Country Fire Authority, Nolan says she is most passionate about her latest role.
“There is a common theme around all of them and it really is around contributing back to society, about community safety and resilience,” she says. “But I have a personal connection around ovarian cancer.
“My sister-in-law Jane died at a very young age and for me it’s a way to give back to
the community, to raise awareness around ovarian cancer, but also really to raise revenue and funding for innovative research.”
Nolan, 58, didn’t know much about ovarian cancer when Jane was diagnosed in the late stages of the disease.
“Like many other people, I went straight onto Google and did some research and the figures are quite devastating,” she says. “When you look at the progress in diagnosis and treatment over the last few decades, there has been minimal progress.
“When you look at other cancers, such as cervical and breast cancer, where there has been significant funding and research, their survivability rates are between 90 and 100 per cent. Unfortunately, with ovarian cancer there has been limited progress.
“Ovarian cancer is the most lethal of the gynaecological cancers. One woman will die every eight hours from ovarian cancer in Australia alone.”
Nolan says the lack of awareness around the disease is astounding.
“If you go and get a sample of women you know and ask them, ‘What’s the early detection test for ovarian cancer?’, you’ll get a difference of opinion,” she says. “But it’s all around Pap smears and other types of general detections that are not relevant to ovarian cancer.
“There are not too many people who understand now that there is no early detection and that the symptoms are so vague and nebulous that it’s very difficult to be diagnosed early with the cancer.
“If you have vague symptoms, you’re not going to treat that with the urgency of finding
a lump in your breast or someone picking up there is something wrong in a more profound way. If you have symptoms of bloating, tiredness, having to go to the toilet or urinate more often, you’re not going to see those necessarily as symptoms of ovarian cancer.”
Nolan says while increased awareness is crucial, it’s not going to save as many lives as early detection.
“Most women won’t be diagnosed until the later stages of ovarian cancer because the symptoms are vague and of those women, which is about 70 per cent of all women diagnosed, there is only 25 per cent that will survive past five years,” she says.
While the statistics are bleak, Nolan says there is promising research that she hopes will inspire more funding to continue the good work.
“It’s a tricky disease when you look at it — it’s a spectrum of diseases rather than one type of cancer,” she says. “There is a multitude
of sub types, but the research funding hasn’t been as great or consistent as it should be.
“So the problem with that is dedicated researchers stay where the consistent funding is, and because there hasn’t been consistent funding, you get a lot of researchers that
leave the field.”
The OCRF has partnered with retailer Witchery for the past 11 years and Nolan says funds raised through the White Shirt Campaign have been invaluable.
This year’s event ambassadors include politician Julie Bishop, former The Bachelor contestant Anna Heinrich and Today entertainment reporter Brooke Boney.
“The campaign is incredibly important to us and it’s incredibly important to ovarian cancer researchers,” Nolan says. “The relationship has been going for 11 years and over that time in excess of $12 million has been raised, which is just phenomenal.
“I think just in the last couple of years there has been great progress and we see some of the early detection research is moving into clinical trials, which is fantastic, given five to 10 years ago they were still exploring some of the basic biology of ovarian cancer.
“So we are quite heartened. It’s not going to be a quick road to success, but with continued focus and putting our money towards the most innovative research, we’re very confident we can make great strides over the next five to 10 years.”
Nolan was only meant to assist in the OCRF role for a short period after being asked by a director on the board to help out, but her passion for the cause sees her entrenched in the organisation.
“For me, it’s personal, so it’s easy to be committed to the cause and sell the cause,” she says.
It’s not the first time Nolan has started something with the intention of staying only for a short time but ended up extending.
Nolan joined Victoria Police in 1981, after completing an honours degree in psychology at Melbourne University, to gain some life experience before becoming a clinical psychologist.
“I thought as a private school girl that I needed a bit more life experience before I went into clinical psychology so I looked at a number of options and decided on Victoria Police,” she says. “I thought I could cram in a lot of life experience within a couple of years and unfortunately, or fortunately, loved it so much that I didn’t leave for 32 years.
“It’s just such a fantastic job. There are a hundred different careers within that, so if you get bored easily, like I do, you have the opportunity to move into a completely different field within the same organisation.
“And every day you are contributing to community safety, but also so many personal experiences with helping people, quite often when it’s the worst day of their lives.”
Women made up only 14 per cent of the force when she started. They were expected to wear skirts and were issued with handbags.
“They were so impractical. We were expected to do the exact same tasks and activities as men. It’s very difficult to chase after crooks and climb over fences in a skirt,” she says with a laugh.
She had worked her way up the ranks to deputy commissioner of regional operations when she was offered a new opportunity at the CFA in September 2015.
“The CFA came up and it was just an opportunity to test my leadership style and skills in a completely different organisation where I hadn’t grown up in it,” she says.
“It was a wonderful opportunity to come into an organisation cold and to test my skills but also to lead such an incredible community organisation that is the one of the most
revered in Victoria.”
But the experience was to be short-lived. Nolan refused to sign a controversial enterprise bargaining agreement backed by the Andrews state government because she believed it was destructive and divisive.
When a new board of directors was brought on to push through the contentious industrial agreement, she resigned just 10 months after taking up the position.
“It was a baptism of fire, but I don’t regret it now,” Nolan says. “Even with the benefit
of hindsight, I still would have made the decision to go to the CFA.
“It was a wonderful experience, albeit short. I just wished I could have contributed more
in terms of progress and enabling them to achieve what they needed to achieve.”
While she has enjoyed considerable success in her very full professional life, personally Nolan has quietly raised three children, now all adults, with her police officer husband Paul Frawley.
Liam, 26, is autistic and works part-time at Kmart. Her middle son Ethan, 24, is following his parents into public service, having recently applied to join the army as a combat engineer, while Imogen, 23, is a student.
“I think any parent would be nervous about their children entering particular fields where there is an anticipation it is a bit more dangerous but my husband is still a police officer, I was there for 32 years, and we know how rewarding the job can be and how much you can contribute to the community,” Nolan says. “So we are nothing but supportive of our children in their choices.”
Down time involves the other great love of Nolan’s life, the Hawthorn Football Club. She was appointed to the board of directors in 2016.
“Being a passionate Hawks supporter — and my husband is as well, which has also helped — we both love Hawthorn and the football,” she says.
WHITE SHIRT DAY AND WORLD OVARIAN CANCER DAY IS WEDNESDAY, MAY 8. FOR EVERY WHITE SHIRT SOLD AT WITCHERY, 100 PER CENT OF GROSS PROCEEDS WILL GO TO THE OCRF. WITCHERY.COM.AU
OVARIAN CANCER FACTS
- About 1100 women die every year from ovarian cancer — one every eight hours.
- Early stages of ovarian cancer have no obvious symptoms, resulting in most women being diagnosed in the advanced stages ofthe disease.
- More than 50 per cent of people incorrectly believe a Pap smear diagnoses ovarian cancer.
- When detected and treated early, 80 to 100 per cent of women will survive beyond five years compared with only
- 20 to 30 per cent diagnosed at a late stage. A shocking 70 per cent of women will already be in the late stages when diagnosed.
Source: Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation
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