Kathleen Owen Donovan was born on 20 January 1931, in the Sydney suburb of Waverley. Despite her family's medical work, she grew up with a fear of illness and death, which she blamed on the fact that her oldest sister had died three months after she was born from leukaemia. Dorothy's inability to deal with this also left a dark cloud over Kath's childhood.

When Kath's biology teacher said to her ''be sure to study something that interests you'', she chose agricultural science at the University of Sydney. In a class that was predominantly male, Donovan excelled. She graduated top of the year and was awarded the University Gold Medal. She then received the Walter and Eliza Hall Scholarship to do a PhD on the serology of milk at Edinburgh University.

During her early days in Edinburgh, homesickness motivated Donovan to seek out a church. She was not in the habit of regular Christian worship but she was intrigued by the sermon based on Jesus' words ''seek and ye shall find''. This, as a scientist, gained her immediate interest.

She sought out the preacher, who suggested she read and re-read the New Testament in a modern translation. The outcome was a deep Christian commitment and the eventual decision to study medicine after completing her Edinburgh studies.

Back in Australia, to the amazement of all close to her, Donovan returned to the University of Sydney, trained in medicine and prepared to work in Papua New Guinea. Once there, she also developed a keen interest in malaria and was the first person to report chloroquine-resistant strains of the disease in her area.

Over the years, Donovan wrote scientific articles on malaria, pigbel (a parasitic form of necrotising enteritis) and other tropical diseases. During the independence celebrations for Papua New Guinea, in 1975, she was awarded Papua New Guinea's Independence Medal for services to the country.

On returning to Australia permanently in 1983, Donovan began research into stress and coping and wrote the book Growing Through Stress (1991).

She then provided medical information to societies caring for people who worked in developing countries and, together with her friend and co-worker Ruth Myors, established the Christian Synergy Centre, which provided psychological and medical services to missionaries and other Christian workers. In 2001, she co-wrote a book, Taking the Mystery out of Malaria, for non-medical people.

In 2008, Kath Donovan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. She never married and is survived by a niece and two nephews and their families as well as Ruth and many other friends.