Top neurologist still calls Taranaki home
Distinguished Professor Sir Richard Faull, a neurologist, came home to Taranaki last week to say thanks to the region he says enabled him to make the most of his opportunities.
He was invited by the Neurological Foundation and was “In conversation” with Dr Sarah Schonberger, the Neurological Foundation’s head of research, at an event on Thursday night.
Earlier that day, Faull talked about his connection to Taranaki and growing up in Tikorangi.
“I’m coming home to say thank you to Taranaki for the wonderful opportunity you’ve given me.”
His roots went deep in Taranaki. On the Māori side he had links to Te Atiawa hapū Ngāti Rahiri. And his Pākehā roots went back to the immigrant ship William Bryant, which arrived in 1841.
He went to Waitara High School but did his last year at New Plymouth Boys’ High School, where he won the Taranaki Scholarship, which paid for his studies at Otago University, he said.
“Otherwise I couldn’t go. When I was a medical student, I saw the human brain in my third year and that’s where gained my passion for the brain.”
In 1978, he was specialising in brain research in the United States at top universities Harvard and MIT, he said.
“I wanted to stay a bit longer. I wrote back to my dad and said can we get a bit more money to stay a bit longer to learn the latest techniques on brain research.”
It was important he learnt from the masters, he said.
So his father spoke to close friends, kaumatua from Te Atiawa, and the Taranaki Māori Trust Board offered him some funding. Faull received a letter from his father with the good news, he said.
“I wrote back and said ‘you know Dad, I don’t know whether I can accept that because I don’t really feel Māori’. He went back and talked to them and they said ‘he is Māori, and one day he will come home and he will help our people’. So, that was the challenge.”
He had kept his end of the bargain and last October was presented with a korowai, cloak, and a tokotoko named Aumangea, carved by master carver Rangi Bailey from Faull’s hapu Ngāti Rahiri, and Te Atiawa, for his work with Māori in brain research.
The word aumangea was a Taranaki kupu that translated to strength, leadership, championship, and wisdom, he said.
“It’s carved from mahogany from the dining table of the Baileys, the heart and soul of Ngāti Rahiri. It was pretty emotional actually,” he said.
Faull started the the Neurological Foundation Human Brain Bank in Auckland. He received his first human brain in 1981, initially so he could study Huntington’s disease. He believed they would have a cure in about five years.
The bank grew over time and included the brains of people who had other health conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease. By 1993, it had about 50 brains and needed money to fund it, he said. The Neurological Foundation helped fund it and it had been going for 30 years.
The talk at the Devon Hotel on Thursday was attended by 140 people.
Faull, 78, said he had promised his wife he would retire. “I will slowly retire, but not for a few years.”