Ophthalmologists Dr James La Nauze from Melbourne and Dr Stephen Godfrey from Surfers Paradise have been recognised in the 2022 Australia Day Honours.
La Nauze was awarded Member (AM) in the General Division of the Order of Australia for significant service to ophthalmology, and to not-for-profit organisations.
Godfrey was awarded Medal (OAM) of the Order of Australia in the General Division for service to medicine as an ophthalmologist.
La Nauze trained at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital in Melbourne, and at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge, UK. Upon his return to Australia, he worked in Albury, NSW for 20 years. He then moved back to Melbourne and began consulting at Vision Eye Institute Footscray, where he has remained for the past 20 years.
Among many professional roles, La Nauze was a board member of the Fred Hollows Foundation from 2010 to 2019, and chair of its Medical Advisory Committee from 2010 to 2016.
He has also undertaken many clinical and surgical trips to remote areas of Queensland and the South Pacific and has led many surgical training teams to Vietnam, Cambodia and China.
Godfrey is one of the founding partners of Outlook Eye Specialists in Surfers Paradise, established in 1999. He graduated from the University of Queensland Medical School, and after seven years as a GP and country medical superintendent in the central west of Queensland, completed ophthalmology training in Brisbane.
He obtained further experience at Taunton Hospital in Somerset, England, before settling on the Gold Coast in 1999.
Godfrey is current chair of RANZCO’s Queensland branch, a position he has held since 2017, and has been a volunteer with the Aboriginal Outreach Eyecare Service North Queensland for 20 years.
He has been a Visiting Medical Officer in the Ophthalmology Department at Gold Coast University Hospital since 1999.
Miss Patricia d’Apice, a senior consultant at the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children in Sydney, was also awarded a Medal (OAM) of the Order of Australia in for service to education for people with vision impairment.
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