Sebastian Calderon, Murray Pioneer

Riverland families are set to farewell one of the region’s longest-serving doctors, who is retiring after almost 38 years of caring and supporting local patients.

Berri Medical Clinic GP Kevin Stanton has chosen to retire after nearly four decades of medical work in the Riverland.

Dr Stanton said the most rewarding part of his career was delivering almost 1000 babies and supporting generations of Riverland families through every stage of life.

“Probably the most rewarding memory is probably all the babies I delivered over 38 years,” Dr Stanton said.

“Although I only did obstetrics for 28 years, I delivered almost a thousand babies in that time period.

“Looking back on that, I think that was probably the most rewarding part of my career.”

Dr Stanton said being a true country GP meant far more than clinic consultations, with doctors heavily involved in hospital care, emergency treatment and palliative support throughout the region.

“We were just everywhere and enjoyed all the actual work that we did as a real general practitioner,” he said.

“We looked after patients in the hospital, we arranged all their retrievals, all their care, right through to palliative care, which I found very rewarding as well.”

Having worked in Berri since the late 1980s, Dr Stanton has witnessed enormous changes in regional healthcare, including shifting hospital responsibilities, growing patient complexity and increasing pressure on country medical services.

“When I first arrived in the Riverland, the local hospital system operated very differently,” Mr Stanton said.

“The Berri hospital once had resident specialists including a general surgeon, consultant anaesthetist and obstetrician, allowing far more complex procedures and treatments to remain local.

“While those specialists were at the hospital, we did a lot of complex medical care and care for cancer patients that now they don’t do.

“During my time here, we did have a resident obstetrician specialist as well.

“While he was here, we looked after quite complex obstetric cases, which now have to be referred down to Adelaide.”

Despite those changes, Dr Stanton said some aspects of regional healthcare had improved significantly, particularly cancer treatment services now available locally.

“We have an oncologist here, so oncology and care of cancer patients has changed significantly,” he said.

“A lot of them now have their treatment and chemotherapy here at the Berri hospital, and they don’t need to go to Adelaide.”

Over the years, Dr Stanton also saw the role of general practice evolve dramatically, with longer consultations and increasingly complex patient needs becoming the new normal.

“Our patients are getting older and living longer,” he said.

“Because of that, they have more complex medical needs.

“When I first went into general practice, most consults were five-to-10 minutes, now they’re around about 20 minutes.

“People can have not just one thing wrong with them, they can have three or four major things wrong with them, that require time to sort out.”

While officially retired, Dr Stanton said stepping away from medicine had been emotionally difficult, particularly leaving behind patients who had become close friends over nearly four decades. “I really do miss the patients,” he said.

“But it’s nice that because we’re staying here, we’re not moving away, so I still see plenty of people down the street at the shopping centre and so on.

“I still have that connection with my patients, but I do find I miss some of them, particularly because some of them I was very close to over the years.”

Throughout his career, Dr Stanton also became heavily involved in mentoring young doctors and medical students entering regional practice.

“Listen to your patients because they are a wealth of knowledge,” he said.

“It’s amazing what you find out from people by just listening to them and letting them tell their story.

That’s probably one of the most important things I learned over the years.”

Dr Stanton said future rural doctors would continue facing significant challenges balancing patient care with the growing business realities of general practice.

“(In) general practice, apart from being a vocation, your practice is also a business,” he said.

“You need to make sure that you can run that profitably and treat it as a business and not just rely on the government and Medicare to run your business.”

After nearly 38 years serving the Riverland community, Dr Stanton leaves behind not only a long medical career, but generations of local families who grew up knowing him as their doctor.

For many Riverlanders, his retirement marks the end of an era in country medicine.

This article appeared in Murray Pioneer, 3 June 2026.