A former Major in the Royal Army Medical Corps who served in Afghanistan and the Balkans, has returned to Falmouth where she has become the latest GP partner at Falmouth Health Centre.

Denise Lasbury qualified as a |doctor in 2002 and after completing her medical studies she enrolled at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was commissioned into the Royal Army Medical Corps.

Her military career spanned ten years and included active tours of duty in Afghanistan and the Balkans, providing frontline |medical cover to infantry units. Working in austere conditions, often under fire and without running water, Dr Lasbury was responsible not only for the delivery of primary care, but also for administering life saving treatment to soldiers injured in combat.

Dr Lasbury’s role included setting up mobile health clinics, treating the local population. In the Balkans, she ran a clinic in a local orphanage ensuring the children had regular health checks and received their childhood immunisations.

Since leaving the army in 2010, Dr Lasbury has taught at the Peninsula Medical School and her husband, Nick, returned to work as a microbiologist at the Royal Cornwall Hospital, Treliske.

Their family has since expanded, first with the addition of Buttons the spaniel, and then in June last year with the arrival of their daughter Emily.

Now settling into life at Falmouth Health Centre, Dr Lasbury’s special interests are women’s health, family planning and sports injuries.

She is passionate about teaching and will be helping with the |supervision of medical students as well as training qualified doctors in family planning.

As well as duties at the health centre, Dr Lasbury has been invited to deputise as life boat medical |advisor to the Falmouth RNLI, where she joins her colleague, Dr Richard James. This came about after she provided medical support to a sailing expedition from the Falkland Islands to Antigua.

Welcoming her to Falmouth Health Centre, practice manager, Geoff Dennis, said: “We are |delighted that Dr Lasbury has joined the practice. She has worked with us in the past so she already knows many of our patients and we know that she shares our |commitment to patient care.

“Her appointment also helps us to offer even greater choice for patients. We now have three female GPs – Victoria Hartnell, Stephanie Jackson and Denise Lasbury – and three male GPs – Richard James, Nicholas Rogers and Paul Davoren.”