The Australian diabetes community is mourning the passing of Dr Alan Stocks AM, a renowned endocrinologist who lived with type 1 diabetes and the father of Kellion Victory Medals.

Diabetes Australia joins with the diabetes community to extend our condolences to his family.

The passing of Dr Stocks, 87, marks the end of an unparalleled contribution to the wellbeing of Australians living with diabetes.

As a young Englishman, Dr Stocks topped England with his surgery results while studying to become a doctor. However, he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes two days before he was to qualify as a doctor in 1959.

The Dean of Surgery told him he didn’t think he could cope with a surgical role because of his diabetes.

The loss to surgery was an important gain to people who live with diabetes.

“I decided if I wasn’t going to train as a surgeon, I would train as a specialist physician. Why not train in diabetes? At least I knew something about it,” Dr Stocks said.

He followed his girlfriend, Miriam, who had newly qualified as a doctor, back to Australia and her hometown of Brisbane.

After stints working with world-renowned endocrinologists such as Professor ‘Skip’ Martin at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the great Professor John Butterfield at Guy’s Hospital in London, Dr Stocks was appointed Visiting Physician to the Diabetes Clinic at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane in 1968.

He continued in this role until 1997, working with Dr Brian Hirschfeld. He became a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 1972 and was involved in private practice until 2002 and medical research until 2007.

One of Dr Stocks’s proudest accomplishments was initiating the Kellion Victory Medals scheme in Australia in 1984 to honour people living with diabetes for 50, 60, 70 or more years. For more than 35 years, he personally administered the eligibility process of the Kellion Victory Medals, with more than 2000 Kellion medals awarded across Australia since the scheme started.