Description
Dr Dan Pronk is a medical doctor, former Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) combat doctor and best-selling author. He served 15 years in the Australian Army, the last five in Special Operations. As a Dan Pronk motivational speaker booking, audiences get a combat-experienced doctor who delivers clinically grounded, evidence-based resilience programs.
Dan studied medicine at Flinders University on an Army scholarship. He then served with high-readiness infantry units before passing SAS selection. In total he deployed on operations five times, once to Timor and four times to Afghanistan. There he served as a combat doctor on more than 100 missions with the SASR and 2nd Commando Regiment.
He was awarded a Commendation for Distinguished Service for his conduct in combat on his second tour. He also represented the Australian Army on the NATO Special Operations Forces Medical Expert Panel.
After leaving the full-time Army in 2014, Dan moved into medical leadership. He was Deputy Medical Superintendent of a regional Queensland hospital and then Medical Director of the South Australian Prison Health Service. Along the way he completed an MBA, his FRACGP and an Associate Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators.
Today Dan is Medical Director of TacMed Australia. He works in emergency medicine and acts as a tactical medical consultant to police and government agencies. Television audiences know him as “Dr Dan”, the resident medic on Channel Seven’s SAS Australia.
Dan is the author of the memoir The Combat Doctor. He also co-authored the best-seller The Resilience Shield with his brother Ben Pronk DSC and fellow SAS veteran Tim Curtis. Connect with Dan on LinkedIn.
Read how Dan rebuilt himself after war in this ABC News feature.
Keynote Topic
Building Your Resilience Shield
Most people think resilience is something you either have or you don’t. Dan knows otherwise. A self-described average guy with average grades, he trained his way through SAS selection. He then served on more than 100 combat missions, and later found that leaving the Army tested him more than war ever had.
His conclusion is backed by clinical evidence. Resilience is dynamic, multifactorial and modifiable. In other words, it can be measured and it can be built.
Drawing on The Resilience Shield model, this keynote shows audiences how to:
- Strengthen their defences across five domains: biological, psychological, social, professional and spiritual
- Turn big goals into daily progress with grit, SMART goals and a refusal to quit
- Perform under pressure through realistic training and honest after-action reviews
- Recover from setbacks and turn hard experiences into post-traumatic growth
As a motivational speaker, Dan Pronk has delivered this message to mining, health, emergency services and corporate audiences. Recent engagements include the AusIMM International Mine Ventilation Congress, Rural Medicine Australia and the Monash Health R U OK? forum. Explore more of our motivational speakers and leadership speakers for your next event.
