He was a Commonwealth Scholarship holder throughout medical school and as an undergraduate was awarded the James McRae Yeates Prize for Clinical Surgery.
He returned to Australia in 1973 and completed his residency training in thoracic and cardiovascular surgery in Sydney at his previous teaching hospitals.
During this period, Michael E. DeBakey was a visiting professor in Sydney and invited Lawrie to spend a year with him in Houston, United States.
In this capacity, he worked with DeBakey on a daily basis for over 20 years and accumulated a very extensive experience in the surgical management of end-stage and complex cardiovascular disease.
In early 1994, he spent 3 months in Glasgow, Scotland, setting up a cardiac surgery program at a new 300 million dollar medical center for Health Care International.