Alumni Award for Outstanding Achievement in Community Service - 2006

Kim Oates is a tireless advocate for children who experience abuse and neglect and who have disabilities. He has served in a leadership role on many national and international councils and organisations that work to prevent child abuse and neglect. He has also contributed to many other community causes for children such as Good Beginnings Australia, Dads Unlimited, The Humour Foundation (which brings the Clown Doctors to children in hospital) and the Starlight Foundation. As past Chief Executive of the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, his community contributions included frequent appearances in the media championing child health issues and child rights.

He developed and established the Child Development and Child Protection Units at the Children’s Hospital, to provide state-wide assessment and treatment services for previously neglected groups.

Within the University Kim was the inaugural holder of the Douglas Burrows Chair of Paediatrics and Child Health, was known for showing medical students some of rural Australia on his clinics in Bourke, served for many years on Postgraduate Committee in Medicine, elected Faculty Representative of the Medical Graduates Association (1998) and was a Founding Editor of the highly regarded Medical Alumni Magazine, Radius.

His current involvement in the community includes acting as a Trustee of the Sydney Grammar School, Patron’s Council 2RPH (Radio for the Print Handicapped), National Goodwill Ambassador of Good Beginnings Australia, and Trustee of the Child Protection Trust and National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect.

In 1996 Kim was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia for service to medicine, particularly in the field of paediatrics and the welfare of children. The Alumni Award for Community Service is conferred upon Kim in 2006 in recognition of his contributions to child health issues and child rights, and his overarching commitment to the medical profession.

photo: Paul de Sensi