Michael Kidd (physician)

Background

Michael Kidd was educated at Belle Vue Primary School, and later Trinity Grammar School, Melbourne. In 1983, he obtained MBBS (Hons) at the University of Melbourne, a postgraduate diploma in Community Child Health at Flinders University in 1989, a Doctorate of Medicine in medical education at Monash University in 1995, and he was awarded Fellowship of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners in 1989.

Professional career

Kidd was President of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners from 2002 to 2006. He was Head of the Department of General Practice at The University of Sydney between 1998 and 2009. In 2009 he was appointed as an Honorary Professor with the School of Medicine at The University of Sydney. From 2009 to 2016, he served as the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Flinders University with responsibility for the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing and Midwifery, and the School of Health Sciences. In 2017 he was appointed as Professor of Global Primary Care with the Southgate Institute for Health, Equity and Society at Flinders University, and as Professor and Chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. He has been a member of the board of directors of beyondblue since 2011. He served ten years as a member of the International Scientific Advisory Board of the UK Biobank Research Project based at Oxford University. From 2008 to 2010 he was the Chair of the advocacy organisation Doctors for the Environment Australia. He served as World President of WONCA from June 2013 to November 2016.

He is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medical Case Reports, the world’s first online, PubMed listed, international medical journal devoted solely to case reports from all medical disciplines.

He also wrote with Leanne Rowe a book on health promotion, Save your life and the lives of those you love – your GP’s six step guide to good health, published by Allen and Unwin in 2007. According to WorldCat, the book is held in 120 libraries. A second book with Rowe discussed the health and well being of doctors and medical students entitled First Do No Harm – how to be a resilient doctor in the 21st century and was published by McGraw Hill in 2009. According to WorldCat, the book is held in 101 libraries.

Government appointments

Kidd has been Chair of the Australian Government’s Ministerial Advisory Committee on Blood Borne Viruses and Sexually Transmissible Infections, and of the South Australian Health and Medical Research Advisory Council. He has also been a member of the Australian Therapeutic Goods Advisory Council. the Medical Training Review Panel, and the Privacy Advisory Committee of Australia's Federal Privacy Commissioner. He is a current member of the council of the Australian Government's National Health and Medical Research Council.

Honours

Kidd is an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. He has been awarded honorary fellowships of: the Royal College of General Practitioners (UK), the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners, the Hong Kong College of Family Physicians, the Academy of Family Physicians of Malaysia, the College of General Practitioners of Sri Lanka and the Australasian College of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine.

He has life membership of the General Practitioners’ Association of Nepal. In 2007 he received the Australian Medical Association Award for Excellence in Health Care in recognition of his contribution to primary care, medical education and the health care of disadvantaged people in Australia. In the 2009 Queen’s Birthday Honours List, he was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for service to medicine and education in the areas of general practice and primary health care and through a range of professional organisations

Selected works