Welcome to Reedy Creek Veterinary Surgery

Dr Justin Ward qualified as a vet in South Africa, he left African shores in 2000 to register with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in the UK. The following 5 years were spent working throughout the UK and travelling around the world.

A decision to move to Australia in 2005, where half of his wife’s family are from, quickly resulted in the realisation, that this is the country he wanted to call home!

Prior to founding the Reedy Creek Veterinary Surgery Justin worked in practices in Sydney and the Gold Coast, as well as starting a practice in Coomera.

The inspiration for Reedy Creek Veterinary Surgery came from Justin’s vision to offer high quality veterinary care, from new well-equipped premises, with a solid dose of good old-fashioned customer service! From this Reedy Creek Veterinary Surgery was born and the clinic opened its doors in May 2012. Since that time it has evolved tremendously, in size and staff, to be the clinic and wonderful team you know today.

With ongoing corporatisation of the industry, Justin is focused on building a highly skilled, compassionate team, whilst maintaining a focus on the wellbeing of the pet, and building life-long relationships with customers. Justin is a true general practitioner and enjoys all aspects of being a veterinarian. His interest in soft tissue and orthopaedic surgery sees him in surgery most days. He is particularly passionate about canine cruciate ligament disease.

Justin’s spare time is spent somewhere on a beach in his 4×4 with his wife, Lisa, by his side and kids, Isla and Daniel, exploring the coastline! Whether it has skin, scales, feathers or fur Justin truly loves all animals! He shares his home with chickens – Zucchini, Freddy, Chuck, Shelly, Lamington, Marbles and Feather! Two cats; Sushi the Himalayan and Kevin the Ragdoll, a forever-young puppy Poppy and Junior the python.

“I love coming to work every day, we have such a dedicated team and work in such a great environment, with the reward of seeing our patients get well, and thrive.”

Dr Mat Lawton qualified in 2006 from the University of Queensland in Brisbane. This is also where he met his partner, Stef (another one of our vets), in 2003.

He started his career with a short stint in Ipswich working mainly with small animals but also undertaking some dairy cow work. Following this he and Stef moved to the beautiful Gold Coast. After three years in small animal practice on the northern Gold Coast Mat and Stef left for the UK where they worked and travelled for the best part of three years.

On arrival back to the golden shores of Australia Matthew worked as a locum doing “fill-in work” all around south-east Queensland for three years.

In 2014 Mat got back into contact with long term friend Justin and Mat and Stef have since settled in for the long term at the Gold Coast. Justin and Mat have enjoyed renewing the old touch football partnership from years before, although now they do most of their running around in the clinic as they work together to manage Reedy Creek Vet Surgery.

Mat enjoys all aspect of general medicine and surgery and having worked in, and with, so many vet practices often brings a different angle to day to day challenges. When not at work Mat enjoys tennis, touch football, hiking, camping, fly fishing and has recently taken up surfing.

“I have really enjoyed putting down roots and being able to build relationships with pets and owners alike”.

Sonja graduated from the University of Pretoria, South Africa, in 1995.

After graduating she moved to England where she worked as a small animal vet in and around London for the next 12 years. It was during this time that she met her husband, Terence, and together they immigrated to the sunny shores of this beautiful part of the world.

Sonja and Terence made Reedy Creek their home 4 years ago where they live with their son, Logan and rescued three-legged cat Buffy.

Sonja has been looking after the pets of the Gold Coast and their parents since 2006 and looks forward to doing this for many years to come. Her special interests include Oncology and Diagnostic Ultrasound.

Emily graduated from the University of Queensland in 2016 and spent the following year working at a specialist practice on the Gold Coast. Here she was able to learn about complicated medical and surgical cases and gain a greater understanding of the best practice of patient care.

After a short stint doing some volunteer work at a vet clinic in Cambodia, she then joined the team at Reedy Creek Vets in early 2018.

Emily enjoys all aspects of medicine and surgery, with a particular interest in diagnostic imaging, especially ultrasonography. Emily tries to spend as much of her spare time as possible either at the beach or relaxing in a rainforest. She is enjoying meeting many of the Gold Coast’s furry friends and their human family members.

Rebecca has been working in the veterinary industry since 2010 starting as a Volunteer Kennel-Hand for six months before beginning her studies for a Certificate IV in Veterinary Nursing. Since completing the course she has grown a keen interest in surgical and medical nursing. Her furry family consists of adopted cat Millie, a chocolate Labrador Baylea, and her horse Monty. Bec runs our hospital and has been a wonderful addition to our team since early 2016.

Jasmin grew up on the Far South Coast of New South Wales surrounded by animals thus developing her love for animals very early on!

After school she followed her passion for horses into a trainee position at a large equine veterinary hospital in Canberra. She loved working in this environment and used the opportunity to gain her nursing qualification. Spending three and a half years working at the equine hospital Jasmin established herself as one of the senior nurses.

The sunshine of the Gold Coast captured Jasmin’s heart and she moved to the Gold Coast in 2014. We were lucky to have her join our team in 2014 as one of our senior veterinary nurses. Jasmin has an aptitude for puppy care and training – this is why she makes an exceptional Puppy School instructor. Her love of puppies transcends into the clinic with her special interest in neonatal and intensive care.

She spends her spare time on her other passions; health and fitness, and her pets Brax the German Shepherd and Peanut her domestic short hair cat.

“We speak for the animals that can’t speak for themselves”

Bec completed her certificate IV veterinary nursing in 2008, and has been working in small animal practice since 2007.

Growing up in Sydney, Bec moved to the Gold Coast in 2009. Bec worked in large veterinary hospitals prior to joining our clinic. She has been with us from the beginning, assisting Justin in setting up Reedy Creek Veterinary Surgery.

She enjoys all aspects of veterinary nursing, including medical and surgical nursing, but has always had an interest in reception and client relations.
Bec lives with her husband, Mick and the latest addition to their family baby Nora, as well as 5 very spoilt cats – Charlie, Basil, Percy and twins Thumper & Bambi. She will always be our “crazy cat lady”!

Having grown up on acreage, since she was a small child, Kate has always had a love of all creatures great and small.

She naturally found her way into veterinary nursing by starting out as a kennel hand at a clinic on the Gold Coast. She completed her Certificate IV in Veterinary Nursing in New South Wales in 2007 and never looked back!

She has worked in both the UK and the East and West coasts of Australia across several areas of nursing including general practice, emergency and specialist practice as well as volunteering as a nurse with Vets Beyond Borders in India.

Kate and her husband recently returned to the Gold Coast to be closer to family. The have two small children and two fur-babies Benny the cat & Domino the rescue dog. Kate has recently joined the Reedy Creek Vet team part-time and looks forward to using her knowledge and skills to deliver exceptional customer service to you and your pet!