The Quiet Achiever

When Australian scientist Professor Graeme Clark, the inventor of what’s known as the bionic ear, was asked what he’d learned on his long journey of discovery, he quoted Winston Churchill’s words, ‘Never, never, never give up!’
​It’s 1945, in the days when Camden was a rural area on the fringe of Sydney. Picture a young boy in the town pharmacy, watching his father’s daily struggle to communicate with his customers because of severe deafness. That image helps explain why, when the local Methodist minister asked ten-year-old Graeme Clark what he wanted to be when he grew up, he  replied ‘an ear doctor’.
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When Australian scientist Professor Graeme Clark, the inventor of what’s known as the bionic ear, was asked what he’d learned on his long journey of discovery, he quoted Winston Churchill’s words, ‘Never, never, never give up!’
It’s 1945, in the days when Camden was a rural area on the fringe of Sydney. Picture a young boy in the town pharmacy, watching his father’s daily struggle to communicate with his customers because of severe deafness. That image helps explain why, when the local Methodist minister asked ten-year-old Graeme Clark what he wanted to be when he grew up, he replied ‘an ear doctor’. 

His parents and some gifted teachers gave shape to his boyhood passion and helped launch him on a quest that was something like the attempt to land a man on the moon. Only in this case, the space conquered was the distance from the ear to the brain. 
We still know little about how the brain codes sounds and makes them into intelligent communication. Graeme Clark’s ground-breaking idea was to by-pass the inner ear by using a tiny microphone and computer to mimic the way the brain codes sound. A receiver stimulator translated sound into electrical signals which stimulated hearing in the brain. 
Graeme’s success in creating the first and only effective sensory interface with the brain was unparalleled. It’s been declared the most important advance in the history of the management of profound deafness. But it was a long and difficult journey.
The pioneer researcher needed a robust faith faculty. When he started his research in 1967 he met strong opposition. Science said his plan to simulate auditory nerve fibres was not feasible. Difficult questions could only be answered by testing with deaf people, not by experimenting on animals.  Medical specialists advised him that it was dangerous to operate on the inner ear – the nerves could be destroyed and infections might lead to meningitis. There was even opposition from the deaf community. 
Some cynics dubbed him ‘Clown Clark’ and at first, few were willing to fund his research. The generosity and vision of businessman Reg Ansett in 1974 provided the finance to make it possible to carry on. When the breakthrough came and the first patient reported he could hear running speech, Graeme was so overjoyed he went into the next-door lab and burst into tears. The long fight had been worth it.
Looking back, he credits his own pig-headedness plus blood sweat and tears plus his Christian faith, enabling him to realise his ultimate dream of seeing children who were born deaf develop spoken language. He was excited to see them have the same opportunities as hearing children of getting jobs, advancing careers and developing a social life. Around 200,000 people of all ages worldwide - in over 100 countries - have benefited from life-changing cochlear implant technology.
A significant part of Graham Clark’s journey began at about age eleven, sitting in the back paddocks of a country town thinking about the beauty of nature and wondering if there was a God. As he grew up, church didn’t initially help with his inquiry much and skilled teachers taught him to apply rigorous philosophy, logic and maths to his spiritual quest. 
Step by step as he matured, he found good reasons why he could maintain a scientific outlook and also develop an intelligent Christian faith.  The more he explored the complexity of the brain and the phenomenon of hearing, the more he was convinced of there being an Intelligent Designer. A warm personal faith in God energised his research and strengthened his purpose.
It’s moving to think back 70 years to that country pharmacy, when a small boy was moved by his father’s disability to begin a lifetime mission to conquer the vast silence that isolates people in the deaf world.
It’s a great Australian story – Professor Graeme Clark, the quietly determined achiever.