Dr Peter Hadjipetrou

Dr Peter Hadjipetrou has practised as an Interventional Cardiologist in Brisbane for more than twenty years. He was born in Cyprus, to parents who came from a remote village, and grew up aware of how much harder healthcare was to reach for people living outside the cities. Where you happened to live could decide the care you got, and often whether you got it in time. That stayed with him and shaped the kind of doctor he wanted to become.

He studied medicine at the University of Queensland and then went to Boston for advanced training in cardiovascular and endovascular intervention, working in busy tertiary centres on the full range of coronary and peripheral cases. He brought that experience home to Brisbane, where he has spent his career widening access to both acute and elective cardiac care - from emergency treatment of heart attacks through to planned procedures that keep people well and out of hospital.

Over the years he has taken on many of the more complex interventional cases referred to him, and has worked to bring newer techniques into everyday practice rather than leaving them to a handful of centres. His approach is a considered one: he treats the person in front of him, not just the artery or the scan, and takes the time to explain what is happening and why it matters.

Alongside his clinical work, Dr Hadjipetrou is an active researcher with a substantial record of publications, and he speaks regularly at conferences in Australia and overseas, where he argues for innovation in cardiology and for better access to care. Much of what drives him still traces back to his parents - the value of hard work, and of looking after the people around you - and to the belief that good cardiac care should be within reach of everyone, wherever they happen to live.