Peter Dornan AM Clinician | Educator | Pioneer | Author

Following a prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment, and after experiencing depression, incontinence and other side effects, sports physiotherapist Peter placed an ad in the newspaper, inviting fellow patients to meet. This is just one example of how Peter pioneered a new field of Physiotherapy.

Peter's commitment to helping men share experiences and seek support has helped create a culture change in the treatment management for men with prostate cancer. Receiving a grant to research incontinence – a common consequence in men after prostate cancer treatment – he developed a nationally and internationally recognised program for managing patients with pelvic pain.

Peter highlights the most important thing for him right at the end of our interview and leaves us with a song. Truly a unique gentleman.

You can also watch our interview on YouTube.

Thanks for listening.

Biography
Peter Dornan has for more than fifty-five years been a physiotherapist in the fields of sporting injuries and manipulative therapy, working with many international sporting teams, including being the inaugural physiotherapist for the Queensland rugby team, the Wallabies and the Kangaroos. He has also been an Olympic Games Advisor and Commonwealth Games physiotherapist, covering many different sports. He is a Fellow of SMA, and has written two successful books on sporting injuries, as well as designing and marketing a video exercise program. For his achievements in sport, he was awarded the Commemorative 2000 Australian Sports Medal.

In 1997, he became Founder and Convenor of the Brisbane Prostate Cancer Support Network for twenty years. In 2000 this interest in Men's Health won him the Cancer Council Queensland Travelling Fellowship to study aspects of cancer in the United States. In this regard, he successfully climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to collect material for his book Conquering Incontinence, released in 2003. Following this success, he tackled Mt Aconcagua in the Andes in 2009, and Mt Elbrus in 2013 the highest mountain in Europe. In 2009, he was awarded the Max Gardner Award for distinguished service to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia. In 2011, he became a Director on the Board of Cancer Council Queensland.

Peter has been freelance writing for some years of fiction and nonfiction. Peter's most recent book Pelvic Pain: A Musculoskeletal Approach for Treatment was published in 2014, and upgraded in 2019.

Peter has studied classical sculpture for forty years and has works displayed in many prominent Queensland, national, and international institutions, and private collections.

In 2002 Peter was appointed as a Member of the General Division of the Order of Australia (AM).

Peter has been married to Dimity Dornan AO, a speech pathologist, for more than fifty-five years. They have two adult children, Melissa and Roderick.