Donald Duffy
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Donald Grant Duffy (1 January 1915 – 16 January 1995) was an Australian medical doctor and surgeon. He served in the Australian Army in World War II and was a president of the Melbourne Football Club.
Duffy was born in Mourilyan in northern Queensland on 1 January 1915,[1] to Leontine Joseph Duffy and Bessie Rose Grant. Leontine was a manager of Australian Sugar. Donald was one of three children, all of whom ended up working in the field of medicine; his brother, Douglas, was a urologist and his sister, Dorothy, was a nurse.[2]
Schooling
Although born in Queensland, Duffy was educated at The Geelong College in Victoria.[3] He then went on to study medicine at Ormond College,[3] University of Melbourne, graduating with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) in 1938. Duffy achieved his Doctor of Medicine (MD), also from the University of Melbourne, in 1945.[2]
World War II
Duffy enlisted to the Australian Military Forces, the forerunner to the Australian Army Reserve, as part of the Second Australian Imperial Force, on 13 May 1940 in Caulfield, Victoria.[1] He was posted to the 2/14 Battalion as the regimental medical officer.[2] He served in the Middle East, Syria and New Guinea[3] and in the Kokoda Track campaign, which was vital in stopping the Japanese invasion of Australia.[2] In 1942 Duffy was promoted to the rank of major[2] and on 23 December 1943 he was mentioned in dispatches, in the London Gazette and the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, for "Gallant & distinguished services S.W.P. Area".[4] Duffy was discharged on 8 May 1946.[1]
Medical career
Once discharge from the Army, and having earned his MD the previous year, Duffy was awarded a Nuffield Dominion Travelling Fellowship, which took him to London, where he worked with Professor Clifford Wilson in experimental studies on hypertension and nephritis. After his fellowship, Duffy returned to Melbourne and worked at the Alfred Hospital, the Austin Hospital, and the Repatriation General Hospital, Heidelberg. He worked as a MacKeddie Research Fellow at the Baker Medical Research Institute for four years, where his work was concerned hypertension and renal disease.[2]
Duffy became Sub-Dean and, later, Dean of the Clinical School, at the Alfred Hospital and was instrumental in obtaining funds for the first commercially built Renal Dialysis Unit used in the hospital. At the Austin Hospital, Duffy, along with Keith Bradley and Tom Patrick, was responsible for creating the Spinal Unit.[2]
Duffy became a member of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP), upon receiving his MD in 1945 and he became a fellow of the RACP in 1954. He served on the Victorian State Committee of the RACP from 1958 to 1964. Duffy was also a member of the Australian Rheumatism Association, the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand, and the Australasian Society of Nephrology.[2]