Clinical Associate Professor Ruth Blackham is a consultant bariatric and general surgeon, academic, and Director of Aurora Bariatrics. Her clinical and academic work focuses on metabolic and bariatric surgery, surgical quality, and the assessment of surgical performance.

Associate Professor Blackham holds a PhD examining surgeon performance in sleeve gastrectomy, as well as master’s degrees in surgery and legal medicine. She previously held an academic appointment in a university discipline of surgery for six years. In this role, she taught medical students and junior doctors, as well as postgraduate surgical registrars and fellows.

She serves on the Editorial Board of Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases and is a reviewer for the ANZ Journal of Surgery. She also contributes to surgical education and professional standards through the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, including as a Council-appointed member of the Prevocational Skills and Education Committee and the Skills and Oversight Committee.

Clinical Associate Professor Blackham is an advocate for junior doctors and has contributed to this work through the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, Australian Medical Association and the Postgraduate Medical Council of Western Australia.

Qualifications

• Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery, University of Western Australia
• Doctor of Philosophy—assessment of surgeon performance in sleeve gastrectomy
• Master of Surgery, University of Western Australia
• Master of Legal Medicine, Griffith University
• Diploma of Child Health, Princess Margaret Hospital for Children
• Diploma of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
• Vocational Graduate Diploma in Women’s Health, King Edward Memorial Hospital for Women
• Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons
• Fellow of the Australasian College of Legal Medicine
• International Fellow of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery
• Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors

Professional affiliations

• Australian Medical Association
• Royal Australasian College of Surgeons
• Australia and New Zealand Gastric and Oesophageal Surgery Association
• Australia and New Zealand Metabolic and Obesity Surgery Society
• International Federation for the Surgery of Obesity and Metabolic Disorders
• American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery