Donald Vickery's father Ebenezer was a generous supporter of the Methodist Church and owner of a large home in Waverley. After his death his widow and children, now all adults, gave the home and part of the surrounding land to the Methodist Church in 1919 to establish the War Memorial Hospital. Of Ebenezer's children, Kenneth became a radiologist and Donald a paediatrician. His daughter married PL Hipsley who became a leading paediatric surgeon and obstetrician, in turn having two sons, Eben and Donald, who became doctors. Donald Vickery and Donald Hipsley served on the council of the Waverley Memorial Hospital for many years.

Vickery attended Sydney Grammar School and then commenced his medical course at Sydney University. In 1915, at the end of his first year he enlisted and served as a gunner in France through the First World War. He then entered Wesley College and completed his medical course. In 1928 he was appointed to the honorary staff of the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, after a period as outpatient registrar. He retired from the active staff of the hospital in 1956 and from the consultant staff in 1966. He was also an honorary physician of the Tresillian Mothercraft Training School, regularly treating inpatients and outpatients of the Petersham Centre. He practised as a general paediatric physician in Macquarie Street from 1928 to 1966.

His interests were wide, but he gave special attention to respiratory diseases. In 1946 he established a bronchiectasis clinic at the Children's Hospital and for a time worked in the asthma clinic. He played a part in expanding knowledge of the widespread effects of rubella in early pregnancy after Norman Gregg (qv 1) made his important observations on rubella and cataracts in 1941 and he shared a number of patients with Gregg.

In 1943 he was responsible for the first use of penicillin in the hospital and the first in a civilian in Australia. A child was seriously ill with pneumococcal meningitis. Sulphonamides were barely keeping him alive. A cable was sent to the director general of the War Supply Procurement Mission in Washington USA requesting penicillin. This was sent by air, arriving six days later and the child recovered.

Vickery's clinical work was featured by meticulous attention to detail. Few wrote fuller clinical notes. He talked freely to the parents of his patients and had great skill in allaying their anxieties about the many minor ills that worried them and for many years had a large and devoted following. He was a foundation member of the Australian Paediatric Association and became president in 1964. He gave long service on the council of Wesley College.

He married Enid Clare Murphy in 1932. He had met her as a nurse at Prince Alfred Hopsital in his resident days. They had a son and two daughters. His great interest outside medicine was a grazing property at Holbrook which he bought in 1928 in partnership with a brother-in-law. They gradually built this into an outstanding estate. He was a very progressive grazier and had a romantic love of the land.

He was a pioneer of pasture improvement by the use of superphosphate and the introduction of subterranean clover and phalaris grass. He was known locally as the mad doctor who threw dust around his property. His son took over management of the property. He was a keen tennis player and for many years played regularly at Pratten Park with his doctor friends TY Nelson, Kent Burnett and Colin Vickery. In later years he played bowls.