Reg Sobey was a gentleman in the truest sense of the word, and served the Warrnambool and Southwest Victorian community with quiet distinction as a consultant physician

Reg’s mother was a teacher in rural Australia and his father worked for the British Phosphate Commission. He spent his early years in Melbourne but his secondary education was at St Peter’s College Adelaide, and then he enrolled at Adelaide University to complete his MBBS.

He served as an RMO at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in 1943, then as a naval Surgical Attendant on HMAS Warramunga 1944-46. He worked as an RMO in the Repatriation General Hospital in Adelaide 1947-50, and then went to the United Kingdom for postgraduate study, and was an HMO at the Hammersmith and a Registrar at Queen Mary’s Hospital London in 1950 and 1953 respectively. He gained his MRACP during this period. On his return to Australia he spent a year at the Repatriation General Hospital in Heidelberg Victoria before entering practice in Warrnambool in late 1954.

Reg met his lifelong partner, Dorothy Pauline Welfare, while performing a locum for the town doctor in Port Lincoln, South Australia. This partnership gave rise to six children, Ian (deceased), John, Robert, Dianne, Christine and Peter.

Initially Reg’s professional life in Warrnambool started in a group general practice, although he continued his interests in internal medicine. In 1973 he established an independent consultant practice as a general physician, and continued this practice until his death in 1991. Reg brought to his medical practice as to his private life a gentleness, quiet courtesy and integrity, that caused him to be held in the highest regard by all that came to know him. He contributed to the Warrnambool Base Hospital at many levels including as a Hospital Board Member and Board President.

In addition to his busy consultant practice, he found the time for a good deal of community activity, particularly through his involvement with Rotary, and was awarded the Paul Harris Fellow medal for these activities.