Anna Donald

Anastasia Katherine "Anna" Donald (née Courtice; 1966 – 1 February 2009) was an Australian pioneer in the field of evidence-based medicine as well as an epidemiologist and company director.

Early life and early education

Anastasia Katherine "Anna" Courtice is the child of biologist Tony Courtice and Janet, then an honours student in Classics at the University of Sydney, in 1966. Via Janet, Anna is of Anglo-Chinese descent; Anna's maternal grandmother's surname is Dong.

At age 2 years, Anna's parents separated. Following her parents' separation, Anna and her mother lived with Anna's maternal grandparents for a year. Later, Courtice's mother divorced Courtice and married lawyer Bruce Donald, with whom she would rear Anna Donald.

Donald undertook her secondary education at North Sydney Girls High School in Crows Nest, New South Wales and Narrabundah College in Canberra. During this time, Donald distinguished herself from her peers by winning state and national prizes in mathematics and French. Further, she represented Australia in the International Mathematical Olympiad. However, her education at North Sydney Girls was not without issue. In 1981, after Bruce Donald and Janet separated, Anna experienced emotional symptoms and developed anorexia nervosa.

In Year 10, Donald attended school in France for several months. Depressed and disenchanted with her old school when she returned to Australia, Donald then moved Narrabundah College in Canberra, where she completed Years 11 and 12.

Tertiary education and training

After completing Year 12 at Narrabundah College, Donald gained entrance to the University of Sydney in 1985, where she resided in Wesley College, University of Sydney and the Women's College, University of Sydney and earned a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in History and Pre-Clinical Medical Studies, in 1989.

During her collegiate education, Donald won the Henry Lawson Prize for a collection of short stories. In addition to this, Anastasia also presided over the 1988 World Universities Debating Championship held in Sydney, at which she met her future husband, Michael Roland Hill, a member of the winning debating team from the University of Oxford. Donald was elected to the University Senate (1989), President of the University of Sydney Union (1987–88), and Honorary Treasurer of the University of Sydney Union (1986–87) during this time.

Donald later won the 1989 Rhodes Scholarship for New South Wales, becoming the second woman from the state to win the award. Donald's paternal grandfather was also a recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship in the 1930s. Donald attended the University of Oxford in Oxford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom, as a member of St Hilda's College, Oxford, where she read for a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (B.M.B.Ch.) degree. After her medical studies, Donald interned in Oxford and did residencies in other parts of Oxfordshire, England; Glasgow, Scotland; and Kenya.

Following her residencies, Donald attended Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, during which time she was sponsored by a Menzies Scholarship, a Kennedy Fellowship, and a Caltex Award and where she earned a Master's in Public Policy (M.P.P.).

Career

Donald worked as a doctor and lecturer in epidemiology and public policy at University College London, and on the Whitehall Study on public health.

In 1988, with Dr Vivek Muthu, she founded Bazian, a company which, according to its website, "provides evidence-based consulting and analysis to support the rational assessment, configuration and commissioning of healthcare services".

Medical publishing

Donald was a founding editor of the British Medical Journal's Clinical Evidence, the Journal Of Evidence-Based Healthcare and Evidence Based Health Policy; and the author or co-author of The Hands-on Guide for Junior Doctors and House Officers Guide To Survival.

Personal life

In 2003, while living in the United Kingdom, Donald was reunited with Michael Hall, who had become a lawyer. Shortly after this, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. They married in 2005 in St. James Church, Sydney. In February 2007, she learned that her cancer had metastasised. Later that year she and her husband returned to Sydney.

Health and illness

On 27 February 2007, Donald was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.

In April 2008, she began writing a blog for the online version of the British Medical Journal. It was called From the Other Side and chronicled her living with cancer. Her last post was on 22 December 2008.

Death

Donald died of breast cancer on 1 February 2009, aged 42, at Mater Hospital in Crows Nest, a suburb on the lower North Shore of Sydney.

Sources

• Correction by Smith and Gray above
• A summer party at Anna Donald's | BMJ
• Dr Anna Donald's obituary by Emma Dent, Health Services Journal.

External links

• Bazian official website
• "From the other side" - BMJ Group Blogs, Anna's blog for the British Medical Journal