Dr Ruth Blackham

Dr Blackham is a Consultant Bariatric & General Surgeon, Academic and Director of Aurora Bariatrics.  She is the only Surgeon to have won both the AMA WA Junior Doctor of the Year and the John Corboy Medal (highest award for a Surgical Trainee) from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.

Dr Blackham undertook specialist training in bariatric surgery in Perth and Melbourne and was bestowed the IFSO Asia Pacific Medtronic scholarship in London as well as the ANZGOSA-Upper GI Younger Fellow scholarship.

After completing 20 years of medical and surgical training she was awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship, granting further access to international surgical immersions in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Singapore, London and Vienna.

Dr Blackham is an academic surgeon, having completed two Masters in both Surgery and Legal Medicine, as well as a current PhD Candidate researching quality and excellence within the discipline of bariatric surgery via The University of Western Australia. She was an Academic within the Discipline of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine for six years requiring teaching of trainee doctors and medical students, post-graduate surgical registrars and fellows. She is an Editorial Board member of the Journal of SOARD (Society for Obesity And Related Disease) and a reviewer for the Australian/New Zealand Journal of Surgery.

She has continued a lifetime of advocacy for junior doctors within the Australian Medical Association and Postgraduate Medical Council of Western Australia. She is a Royal Australasian College of Surgeons council-appointed member for both the Prevocational Skills & Education Committee as well as the Skills & Oversight Committee.