Donald Adam trained in vascular surgery in Edinburgh, Leicester and Adelaide, South Australia. He was appointed as a consultant vascular surgeon in Birmingham in 2004. He is an elected council member of the Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland. He established the complex endovascular aortic service in Birmingham which is one of the busiest fenestrated-branch aortic endografting centres in Europe. He has been a European mentor for fenestrated-branch aortic endografting since 2009.