Peter Joyner, General Practitioner

"I came to Mannum in 1977, having previously worked in a Group Practice in Adelaide and after a brief time in rural Queensland I had decided to move to the country to continue my Medical Practice. From that time until December 2000 I was involved in a small two man practice at Mannum with Owen Compton, he leaving in December 2000 to move to Victoria for semi retirement purposes. At that time I was very fortunate in having Stephen Napoli join me, which was essential to try to sustain the transition from what the practice was like at that time to what it has now become. The support and friendship of Stephen, Samantha and their children (still increasing) has been invaluable over this time and I find that as Stephen and I share the same philosophy of patient care and respect, coupled with the desire to maintain as higher standard of medicine as is possible, we have formed a very good personal and working relationship.

The practice has changed enormously over the past two to three years with the rooms being significantly expanded where they are situated attached to the Mannum Hospital. The increase in consulting rooms coupled with a specific room for the practice nurses has enabled us to increase our efficiency and the total patient care that we can offer.

We have had Registrars in training in our practice for the last three years and both Stephen and I enjoy enormously this continuing contact with young and enthusiastic doctors as we find that they are a great stimulus to our continued learning and we find enjoyment in being able to support and guide these young doctors as they enter general practice.

At the moment both Kylie Booth, Rebecca George and Sonia Schutz live in Mannum and are working in our practice and it is thus a pleasure to be sure that we always can provide access to women GP’s to provide a total balance to our medical team. Dr Brian Moore has been consulting here part-time now for several years and has provided invaluable support over that time and we look to him continuing that role in the future.

Wendy my wife, and our three boys, found that moving from the city here was both a pleasure and a challenge but as they have grown up in this area and have now moved into their mature adult lives they reflect positively on the time they have spent here. I feel it gave them a relaxed broad-based experience which served to balance their time spent in Adelaide in their later schooling years. They have all been able to attain University degrees and are all now working in diverse and interesting areas.

Wendy has a background as a trained nurse and for some time worked here in that role at the Mannum Hospital and then later became the Diabetic Educator as well. Over the past few years she has found an increasing interest and delight in spending time developing our garden and a few years ago decided to cease work completely to free her up for this love of her life. She was able to achieve this development to a point where it became part of the Australian Open Garden Scheme although at this stage further changes are under way and it is not anticipated that a further opening will be for some time. She has been a part of the Rural Medical Family Network since its inception, being secretary long-term and having now just relinquished that role to allow other people to experience that organization and the benefits it provides to the medical families scattered throughout South Australia. In addition to all of the above she has found time over the years to play golf, learn the piano, do ceramic hand-painting etc.

On looking back over these last 25 years that I have been in Mannum I realize how supportive Wendy has been and how much she has been an intrical part to enabling me to continue practicing at the level I have in Mannum, which has been significantly busy for many years. I would look forward to being able to reduce some of the workload in the future in order to spend more time sharing things with Wendy, but I also feel very strongly that I would like to continue to practice in active medical practice for many years as I continue to find it a great source of pleasure and enjoyment and I feel at this stage in my life I would feel quite lost without that continuing contact with patients and doctors.

The practice has recently made a commitment to the Sturt Fleurieu GP Training Consortia and also has been supporting the Adelaide to Outback GP training program in providing placements for registrars in our practice, in their basic, advanced and mentor time.  We also host on a regular basis, medical students from both universities and find this contact with under-graduates and post-graduates a very enjoyable experience and hope to provide a window into country practice at different times in a doctor's career to enable them to fully appreciate and understand how pleasant, rewarding and enjoyable the complete medical practice practice can be".

January 2005 Dr Peter Joyner received an Order of Australia Medal as part of the Australia Day Awards.

A very deserving award to someone who has worked so hard for Rural Health since moving to Mannum to live in l976.
The Practice offers their sincere congratulations to Peter on his award and thank him for his dedication and hard work

February 2006 Dr Peter Joyner celebrated 30years of rural medical practice with his family