Harry first became involved in the early 1990s, under the influence of then Rotorua GP Tony Townsend.
"He was a wonderful mentor to me in my early years here and he took me to college meetings in Hamilton."
After training at St Mary's Hospital in London, Harry spent the first years of his career working in and around London and Papua New Guinea, where he did a year-long stint with Voluntary Services Overseas. His work in Australia included time with an Aboriginal Medical Service and he arrived in Rotorua in the late 1980s.
He has already seen many changes in the sector, but he says change is also a key challenge for the future.
A variety of pressures on health services means the cost of healthcare is likely to double within a decade, but Harry says GPs' ability to meet the increased need is only predicted to increase by about 40 per cent.
New treatments and technologies - often expensive, but offering only marginal benefits beyond existing treatments - are stretching resources.
"New Zealanders have an expectation of access to high-quality healthcare at low cost and the ageing of our population, together with the rise of long-term conditions, such as diabetes and respiratory and heart diseases, will put real pressures on the way we currently organise our health services."
He sees tighter integration between hospitals and community healthcare providers as one of the likely solutions to this.
"Some work currently being done in hospitals will be done in general practice, freeing hospital services to do more work that can only be done in a hospital."
And that does not just apply to GPs themselves - all roles in their practices are likely to change to take over work currently done by GPs - and services and premises will need to be reconfigured accordingly.
"The idea is that everyone will need to practice at the top of their licence to get the best use of skills and experience and the best return on investment we make in training."
But he hopes the changes will not affect the long-term relationships doctors form with families.
"Unfortunately, I never had the experience many of my colleagues did of being able to deliver the babies of babies I had delivered, but we certainly have relationships with patients that go back over several generations and that is a wonderful privilege."
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