Ken Donald

Kenneth John Donald (born 9 August 1936) is an Australian pathologist, academic and former rugby union player.

Donald played ten test matches for the Wallabies and was part of the 1957–58 Australia rugby union tour of Britain, Ireland and France. He was later appointed as the team manager of the Wallabies from 1979 to 1981.

Among his contributions to the medical field, Donald has been praised for his work in controlling AIDS in Australia and for his work pertaining to veteran's health. He progressed to the Australian Open 100-yard-dash which was won by Hector Hogan. Despite the injury, Donald continued to play the remainder of the match.

Deciding to retire to focus on his medical career, Donald's final match with the Wallabies was on the second test against the British Isles in 1959. Donald served as the team's manager until 1981. He also authored the book The Doping Game which was published in 1983.

As Deputy Director-General of Queensland Health, Donald chaired the 1985 Queensland inquiry into racehorse caffeine doping. This ultimately proved to be embarrassing for the Queensland Government and the Queensland Turf Club when it was found the sticks used in the testing to detect caffeine actually contained caffeine themselves. More than 150 racehorses had tested positive to caffeine with horse trainers and owners having received disqualifications and fines.

In 1992, Donald was appointed as the head of University of Queensland's Department of Social and Preventative Medicine and in 2000 was appointed as the head of the university's Graduate School of Medicine.

The Queensland Government asked Donald in 2007 to investigate why there was a list of 140,000 patients waiting to see specialists. Donald's findings discovered the status of some patients were listed as "never to be seen" which health minister Stephen Robertson described as "unacceptable".

As of 2011, Donald's academic work consisted of more than 90 published journal articles and textbooks.

Donald was named as a Queensland Great in 2012.

For his role in helping establish the Repatriation Medical Authority, the Returned and Services League of Australia made Donald an honorary life member.