Wellington-based general practitioners Dr David Werry and Dr Chris Fawcett have been awarded Community Service Medals by The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners.
The Community Service Medal, which was presented at GP22: the Conference for General Practice, recognises members who have made an outstanding contribution to general practice through work in their own communities.
College President Dr Samantha Murton says, “While a large part of being a general practitioner is about providing comprehensive and complex care to patients, many of us also use our specialist knowledge and training by taking on other roles within the health sector, on committees or boards and playing a role in training registrars who are training in this vocation.
“Dr Werry and Dr Fawcett have shown their dedication to their communities by taking on a variety of meaningful and important roles where they can provide a GP perspective and advocate for the health of their communities and I’m glad we are able to recognise their hard work.”
Dr David Werry
Dr David Werry is due to retire after more than 30 years working as a general practitioner in Wellington’s Island Bay community.
Dr Werry is the inaugural member of the Wellington Accident and Urgent Medical Centre Board. Better known as the Wellington After Hours clinic in Newtown, it was set up over 25 years ago and provides essential after-hours care for Wellingtonians and is owned and operated by Wellington GPs. Dr Werry is also a board member of Mary Potter Hospice.
Throughout his career, Dr Werry has developed interests in palliative care and caring for older patients in the community and looks after three rest homes in the Wellington region. For around 20 years he was also a GP obstetrician.
This truly epitomises the general practitioner’s mantra of providing cradle to grave care.
Dr Chris Fawcett
Dr Chris Fawcett is the medical director at Paraparaumu’s Hora Te Pai Health Services and the Kāpiti Health Network clinical lead and is a previous medical director for Te Ora Compass Health. He has been a general practitioner, working in the Kāpiti Coast for over 30 years.
For the College he is an active Medical Educator and teacher for registrars who are training to become specialist general practitioners.