A leading Australian paediatrician, Dr Don Hamilton, died in Sydney on June 30 1998, aged 86. Born in Wellington, NSW, son of Albert Ernest and Mary Linda Hamilton, Don completed his schooling at Fort Street Boys High in Sydney, where he was School Captain and winner of the Headmaster's Prize in his Leaving Certificate year.

As a 17-year old schoolboy, he was offered a cadetship by the Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, but decided instead to pursue a career in medicine, studying at the University of Sydney. He graduated with second-class honours in 1936.

A year later he commenced his career in paediatrics as a resident medical officer at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Sydney, beginning an enduring association that was to last almost sixty years. There he met his beloved Tommy (Edna Winifred Thompson), a nursing sister who became his wife in 1939. While a medical registrar at the Hospital in 1939, he was awarded Membership of the recently founded RAC P and was elected a Fellow in 1955.

World War II interrupted his career and from 1941 to 1946 he served as a Squadron Leader with the RAAF in Australia, New Guinea and Singapore. On his return to Sydney in 1946, he was appointed as Honorary Physician at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children (RAHC) and began work as a private practitioner, initially combining general practice at Epping with consultant paediatric practice in Macquarie Street. In 1950, he set up full-time paediatric practice at Parramatta, continuing there for forty years until ill health forced his retirement at the age of 78.

A gifted and enthusiastic teacher, he taught and examined in Paediatrics for Sydney University for 30 years. He was Senior Lecturer in Child Health at the University of Liverpool in the UK during 1953 and 1954. He was also a Post Graduate Lecturer in Paediatrics not only to medical groups in NSW and throughout Australia, but also in the United States (Wilmington, Delaware) and at the University of Singapore. His publications include 30 articles in scientific journals.

At the RAHC he served on many committees. As Chairman of the Medical Board between 1967 and 1972 he played an important role in the establishment of salaried staff specialist positions, which facilitated the appointment of people such as Dr John Yu and Professor Kim Oates, who were subsequently to serve the hospital with such distinction. He also held paediatric appointments at Crown Street, Westmead, Parramatta District, Ryde District and Balmain District Hospitals.

Don was President of the NSW branch of the AMA (1965-66) and the Australian Paediatric Association (1971-72) and served on the Councils of both bodies for many years.

He was adviser to the Commonwealth and NSW Governments as a member of the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, the NSW Medical Board and the Paediatric Services Advisory Committee of the NSW Health Commission. He was a member of the Council of Wesley College, Sydney University. His immense contributions to paediatrics and medicine were recognised with the award of an AM in 1981.

Underscoring a lifetime's contribution to medicine and paediatrics was Don’s conviction, shared with the AMA during his Presidential address in 1965 that “the greatest rewards of medicine are personal, not economic, the discovery of one's own inseparable identity with the rest of mankind” and “The doctor who is prepared to give the time and warm understanding, enters more deeply into the homes and hearts and minds of his patients than is possible for any other profession”, he said.

This empathy with children, sick or well, and their concerned parents was absolute – he was always their advocate. His ward rounds at the Children’s Hospital were of legendary duration, because he conducted a detailed review of the condition of each child and invited every parent to talk with him for as long as they wished.

Don brought a similar enthusiasm and conviction to every aspect of his life. The literary skills he displayed as a school student were evident throughout his career. He wrote two books - Hand in Hand – The Story of the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Sydney (1979) and A History of the Australian College of Paediatrics (1992).

He was a keen painter, working in both oils and watercolours and a discriminating collector of Australian art. In his eighties he was still writing perceptive critiques of art shows. For many years President of the NSW Medical Art Group, his six part series on “Australian Doctors and the Visual Arts”, published in the Medical Journal of Australia (1985/6) is a significant and original piece of historical research.

In the last years of his life, he edited and adapted the plays of Synge, Barrie and Dahl for performance by the drama group at his retirement village. Just a month before his death, he was still receiving queries from colleagues about points of paediatric history and enthusiastically checking those of which he was unsure.

A loving husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather he was survived by his wife of 58 years Tommy, his children Barbara (Hobson), John and Kenneth, six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren at the time of his death.