Health, Medical, Business and Finance Journalist & Writer

Address: 1 Rosevear St., Stanmore NSW Australia 2048
Ph/fax 61 2 9516 4682
Email: p.lavelle@optusnet.com.au

Peter Lavelle graduated with a medical degree from Sydney University in 1983 and practised as a GP for several years before becoming a full-time journalist and writer. He has an uncanny ability to take difficult concepts and convey them in simple terms to a lay audience or readership using plain English.

Peter regularly contributes news and feature stories covering health and lifestyle, business and finance, and information technology issues for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Financial Review . In the past he has been a regular contributor to the Age, the West Australian, Medical Observer, Open Road, Australian Doctor, Money in Practice, Living Well, Information Week, Australian Property Investor and Australian Author.

Peter also works as a researcher, editor and writer for book publishers on trade and reference books covering a range of topics. Past credits include consultant and contributing author (over 100,000 words) on Anatomica, a family medical encyclopaedia published by Random House, The Ultimate Gardening Book and Australia through Time , (books and CD ROMs) also for Random House, the Home Emergency Guide for Readers Digest, and UK Australia Trade for Focus Publishing

He has completed freelance writing assignments, writing brochures, newsletters, corporate video scripts and other promotional material, for Wildfire productions, Oxford Clinical Communications, and pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly.

He has also written television scripts for the Channel 7 drama series "A Country Practice", had three radio drama scripts produced by ABC radio, and a stage play produced at the Stables Theatre in January 2002 called "Lipstick on a Gorilla".

He currently writes part time for ABC Health Online at abc.net.au/health and does regular broadcasts for ABC local radio stations around Australia. He has made programs for ABC Radio National's All in the Mind and Ockham's Razor. He writes regularly for the Health Reader, a monthly bulletin published by the Australian Consumers Association.

As well as holding a medical degree, Peter has completed the first year of a Graduate Diploma Publishing & Editing at Macquarie University and holds writing course certificates from NIDA and the AFTRS. He is a member of the Australian Society of Authors and the Australasian Medical Writer's Association.