[4] Coates graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1966 with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degree and trained in internal medicine and immunology at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research in Australia, then at the Wisconsin Clinical Cancer Center in the United States.

[20] Alan and his twin brother Roger were born on 27 June 1943 at St George's Hospital in Kew, Victoria[21] to parents Thomas and Joan (née Courtney-Pratt) Coates, who had been married the previous year.

[25] In 2015 Coates survived a serious heart attack while at bellringing practice in St Mary's Cathedral and had to be winched down on a stretcher by abseiling rescuers through a trapdoor in the floor of the tower.

[27] The persistence and skill of his ringing companions, St Mary's Tower Captain Murray-Luke Peard and bellringer Mark Ferguson, were credited with saving his life by immediately administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation CPR.

[29] Coates had suffered a heart attack 15 years previously, when in full academic dress at Sydney University, preparing to participate in a graduation ceremony for medical students.