Six GPs honoured this Aus Day – updated

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This year’s Order of Australia medal recipients and appointees include GPs who have worked everywhere from the sports field to state parliament.


Among the 732 names on this year’s Australia Day Honours List are those of six GPs who are being honoured for their work both inside and outside of the consult room.

Two GPs were appointed Member of the Order of Australia (AM), three were awarded Medal of the Order of Australia and one a Public Service Medal.

Former WA Health Minister the Hon. Dr Kim Hames has been appointed AM in recognition of his service to medicine, the community and the Parliament of Western Australia.

Dr Hames followed his father’s footsteps into country general practice in the late 1970s, before kicking off a career in politics – first as a councillor and deputy mayor, then as a member of state parliament.

He served as WA’s Minister for Health between 2008 and 2016 – no small stint for a famously full-on portfolio.

“I think I’m still the longest serving health minister in the history of the state – in fact, probably any state,” he told The Medical Republic.

“State health ministers don’t last.”

Under his watch, WA built eight new hospitals and increased the health spend to 30% of the budget.

When his parliamentary days were behind him, Dr Hames returned to working as a GP with an interest in skin cancer.

Now mostly retired, he still does the occasional stint of locum work in rural and remote Australia.

“It’s a nice way to be,” Dr Hames said.

“For doctors that are out there that are in that same age bracket, I can tell you that continuing to work and doing locums is a great way to keep your registration up and earn a bit of extra income for travel and still enjoy medicine, which I’m sure most of us still do.”


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Dr Margaret Garde was awarded an OAM for her service to medicine, particularly through education.

“I definitely have imposter syndrome,” Dr Garde told TMR.

“I feel like I do what all GPs do, and especially rural GPs. 

“But for somebody to think that I [should] even be considered for this is overwhelming.”

Over 40 years ago when Dr Garde moved to Portland Victoria, four hours outside of Melbourne, there was very little in terms of professional education.

“I started hosting students all the time, as many as I could,” she said.

“I took part in the John Flynn scholarship program, and then as Deakin University became more involved in medical student education from a rural perspective and I moved to this practice that I’m working in now, it really gave me the opportunity to develop a real connection with the students that we have.

“[The students] spend 12 months with us and so they live in the community … it’s just the best environment to learn in.”

Dr Garde went on to help set up an intern training program, which now offers two places at Portland Hospital.

“It’s just fantastic to see [the students] grow and learn and mature as doctors over that time,” she said.

“On reflection, that’s one of the most gratifying things that I’ve seen happen in the last 10 years.”

Dr Garde has held her position as clinical director at Active Health Portland since 2012 and remains a medical educator.

While she was drawn to Portland for love, Dr Garde hopes that providing students with a well-supported collegiate learning environment in rural locations can them understand the joys of working rurally.

“There are multiple levels of learners – students, junior doctors, registrars and old people like me who help to be the glue that that sticks us all together,” she said.

“[This] gives us the support that that we need to make us feel like we’ve got a good community to talk to, to work with and to back us up and help us when we don’t know stuff.”

It is also critical that supervisors have education support of their own, added Dr Garde.

“Things have improved a bit since the colleges took over training [but] I still feel that there might be room to improve on that.”

Dr Garde said it was great to see general practice being recognised through these awards.

“If we don’t celebrate that general practice can be absolutely fantastic, it can be very well rewarded and it’s an amazing vocation, then people aren’t going to be attracted to it,” she said.

“There is so much that’s really good about what we do.”

Long-time Randwick Rugby Club doctor Dr Joseph Casamento received an OAM in recognition of his service to rugby union as a club doctor.

The Sydney-based GP volunteered with the club for 44 years, and was made a life member in 2001.

Dr Karen Douglas-Make, a GP based in the NSW Central Coast town of Terrigal, was awarded an OAM for service to medicine and the community.

Having grown up in Canberra, she moved to the Central Coast during her residency and never left.

“I joined my practice that I work in now at Terrigal … in 1990, and within a couple of months, I became a partner,” she told TMR.

“I was the only female in an all-male practice, and the rest is history.”

Dr Douglas-Make is now in her 36th year at that same practice, and is no longer the only woman.

“We’ve got many more women now than men – that’s really the way the world of general practice [has gone],” she said.

“[The practice has another] two male partners now, younger than me, and we work in the practice of 13 doctors, including registrars, and we have eight nurses, a wonderful management team and great staff.

“I think that the key to my career has been being able to work with a wonderful team that adds so much to the care for our patients and our community.”

Outside of the consult room, Dr Douglas-Make is a life member of the Avoca Beach Surf Lifesaving Club and a keen traveller.

In fact, when she spoke to TMR, she did so from a glass igloo in Northern Norway, where she is hoping to catch a glimpse of the aurora borealis.

GP Dr David Mills, who has spent a substantial amount of his career in Papua New Guinea, was appointed AM for service to medicine through international development, and rural and remote health education.

GP Dr Victoria Regina Ross was awarded a Public Service Medal for outstanding public service to public health within the Australian health system and the Australian Defence Force.  

Dr Ross was involved in the ADF’s response to the summer bushfires of 2019-2020, the covid pandemic and the recent Monkey Pox and Japanese Encephalitis Virus outbreaks.  

She has also been involved in training clinicians within the ADF. 

Other notable medical industry names on the Honours List this year included: Sober in the Country founder Shanna Whan, who was appointed AM; Lumos project lead Sharon Smith, who received a Public Service Medical; and Murrumbidgee Local Health District chief executive Jill Ludford, who was also awarded a Public Service Medal.

Anyone can nominate any Australian for an award in the Order of Australia. If you know someone worthy, nominate them now at www.gg.gov.au.

The full list of GPs honoured is as follows:

  • Dr Kim Hames, AM
  • Dr David Mills, AM
  • Dr Joseph Casamento, OAM
  • Dr Karen Douglas-Make, OAM
  • Dr Margaret Garde, OAM
  • Dr Victoria Regina Ross, PSM

Note: we try our best to identify every GP and rural generalist physician receiving an Australia Day award. Sometimes we miss a couple – email holly@medicalrepublic.com.au to notify us of anyone who has been overlooked.

This article was updated at 4pm on 28 January to include information about an additional PSM recipient. 

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