‘Truly outstanding service’: GPs recognised in Australia Day honours

Contributions to medicine, education, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, sports medicine and even marine conservation have been acknowledged among GPs in this year’s Australia Day Honours list.
 
They are among this year’s list, which recognises 949 Australians in all, including awards in the Order of Australia (General and Military Divisions), meritorious awards, and recognition for distinguished and conspicuous service.
 
RACGP President Dr Michael Wright congratulated all recipients and said he is ‘proud so many GPs have received honours this year’.
 
‘Specialist GPs have an essential role in keeping their communities healthy, and in many cases also take on leadership roles and as advocates for their patients and communities,’ he said.
 
‘Being awarded or appointed to the Order of Australia is beyond a personal achievement. Recipients may have provided a career of exceptional care, made significant impact through thoughtful innovation, or displayed rare selflessness.’
 
‘This recognition reflects truly outstanding service.’

Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the General Division
 
Dr Fiona Elder Stewart, New South Wales
For significant service to anatomy as a surgical clinician, researcher and educator, as an academic, and to the community.
 
From a teenage jockey to a surgeon, researcher and educator – and RACGP Life Member – Dr Stewart headlines this year’s RACGP Australia Day honours list.
 
After leaving school at the age of 13 to work as a jockey and woolclasser, and finishing high school via correspondence, Dr Stewart has gone on to make a profound impact in Australia and abroad as a professor, associate professor and lecturer and course coordinator in anatomy.
 
She also works as a forensic medical officer with the NSW Police, and as a surgical assistant at several Sydney hospitals including the Royal Prince Alfred, The Royal Alexandra Children’s, Lewisham and Marrickville District.
 
 
Dr Nicholas Medland, New South Wales
For significant service to sexual health medicine as a physician, clinical epidemiologist, and general practitioner. 
 
Dr Medland, who died in February 2025, has posthumously been awarded an AM in recognition of his services to sexual health medicine.
 
He was a key figure in sexual health medical research in Australia and abroad. A past president of the Australasian Society of HIV, Hepatitis and Sexual Health Medicine, he worked in HIV/AIDS research in international collaborations with countries including Thailand, the Netherlands and Vietnam, including serving as Director, Global HIV/AIDS Care and Treatment Program, US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and FHI 360 in Vietnam from 2009 to 2011.
 
He served as the Adjunct Research Associate, Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, Monash University, from 2014–2019, chaired the National Monkey Pox Taskforce, 2022–2023, and was the co-chair, Australasian Sexual and Reproductive Health Alliance.
 
Dr Medland was also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London and published 109 peer-reviewed journal articles.
 
Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the General Division
 
Dr James (Jim) Berryman, Tasmania
For service to medicine as a general practitioner.
 
An RACGP Fellow since 2002, Dr Berryman originally trained and worked as a registered nurse in New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Australia before going to medical school in Dunedin in New Zealand to become a GP.
 
In 2009 he founded the Saunders Street Clinic in the rural north-west coastal town of Wynyard, building it from the ground up.
 
In 2020 he was not only named the Tasmanian and National RACGP Supervisor of the Year, but his Saunders Street Clinic was named RACGP National Practice of the Year, after being the Tasmanian state winner that year, and in 2017 and 2019.
 
He has been on the RACGP Tasmania faculty board and RACGP Rural board and is an ex-member of the RACGP post-fellowship expert committee. He is also a clinical senior lecturer with the University of Tasmania’s rural clinical school in nearby Burnie.​ 
 
 
Dr Victor Buccheri, Victoria 
For service to the Italian community of Melbourne.
 
Dr Buccheri has been a tireless contributor to Melbourne’s Italian diaspora while also working in general practice in Melbourne for more than 50 years.
 
Graduating from Monash University in 1968, Dr Buccheri worked as a GP in Moonee Ponds from 1971 until 2005. Since 2006 he has worked as a GP in Clayton.
 
He brings his medical expertise to Melbourne’s Italian community as a member of the Italian Australian Medical Association, and as a medical panel member of Melbourne’s Italian Consulate General.
 
He is also a current member of the Dante Alighieri Society Melbourne Inc, and the Italian Institute of Culture. His OAM comes as the second national honour bestowed on Dr Buccheri. In 2007, Italy named him a Knight of the Order of Merit (Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana Cavaliere).
 
 
Dr Gordon Campbell, New South Wales
For service to obstetrics and gynaecology.
 
A former GP in the NSW town of Morisset, the Papua New Guinean-born Dr Campbell has built a career in obstetrics and gynaecology spanning more than 30 years as a specialist at Sydney Adventist Hospital and Hornsby Hospital.
 
He has also spent 12 years working in Public Health in Vanimo, Port Moresby, Lae and Goroka in PNG and also undertaken extensive volunteer community work in countries including Kampuchia, Nepal, Singapore and Fiji.
 
 
Dr Roberto Celada, Victoria
For service to medicine as a general practitioner.
 
Dr Celada has been an RACGP Fellow since 1994. Based in Drouin, he worked as a GP at Drouin Medical Centre from 1992-2000, and was a partner and GP at Central Clinic in Warragul from 2000 to 2020. From 1993 until 2023, he was also a visiting practitioner at local aged care facilities.
 
 
Dr William Gransbury, South Australia
For service to the community of Angaston.
 
Now retired from general practice, Dr Gransbury’s work as a GP in the Angaston community spanned four decades – and some days, four quarters. In 1986 he not only became a partner and GP at the Angaston Medical Centre, he joined the Angaston Football Club as club doctor. He worked at the medical centre until 2019 and with the football club until 2011.
 
He remains involved in supporting community health. In 2021 he founded Enhance Barossa Mental Health Inc and, as part of the Steps to Better Health Project, has been the project’s clinical lead since 2014 and a longtime steering committee member for South Australia’s Healthy Towns Challenge in Barossa.
 
 
Dr Andrew Yiu-Man Kwong, New South Wales
For service to general practice medicine.
 
Originally from China, Dr Kwong became a GP in 1979. He has been at the forefront of building a medical community on the NSW central coast.
 
In 1985 he founded the Gosford GP After-Hours Cooperative, and was Chair of the co-operative from 1985 until 1994. He was a founding member of the Central Coast Division of General Practitioners, serving on its executive until 2000 and that same year, he also founded the Central Coast Medical Association and was its chair from 2005 until 2016.
 
In 1993, he was also a co-founder of the Yerin Eleanor Duncan Aboriginal Health Centre.
Within the RACGP, Dr Kwong is a Life Fellow, was a Faculty Board Member and Fellowship Examiner in NSW in the early 1990s, and from the mid-1980s until 2018 was also a GP educator and supervisor.
 
Dr Kwong is also a keen writer of short stories. In 2021, his memoir of his traumatic early childhood in China, and move to a new life in Australia, One Bright Moon, earned him the Michael Crouch Award for a Debut Work in the State Library of NSW’s National Biography Award.
 
Dr Ravin Sadhai, Victoria
For service to medicine, and to the community of Bacchus Marsh.
 
A GP since 1995, Dr Sadhai has worked at the Bacchus Marsh Medical Centre since 2007. And since 2008, he has taken general practice to the local pub, as The Pub Clinic, inviting local men to come along and talk about their health and receive free health checks. In 2023, Dr Sadhai began the Ladies Lounge at the same pub, to encourage women to also become proactive about their health. The events have grown to now involve local community groups such as football clubs, the CFA and Lions.
 
 
Dr John Geoffrey Taylor, Western Australia
For service to conservation and the environment.
 
Now retired, Dr Taylor worked as a GP in Western Australia from 1977 until 2020. It was in the early 1980s he also discovered a passion for the then little-known whale shark after a visit to Ningaloo Reef. Dr Taylor is now a recognised world authority on what is the largest fish in the world. In 1994 he published a book about the animals, Whale Sharks: The Giants of Ningaloo Reef, and is credited with sparking a multi-million dollar ecotourism industry devoted to the ocean giants.
 
 
Dr Mark Waters, Queensland
For service to medical administration.
 
An RACGP Fellow and Life Member, Dr Waters has spent 40 years working as a manager, director or medical superintendent across the Queensland health system in hospitals, health services and state government.
 
He is a committee member and past chair of the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators – Queensland Committee, and since 2020 has been a board member of the South West Hospital and Health Service.
 
 
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Australia Day honours Medal of the Order of Australia Member of the Order of Australia