Dr Alison Margaret Kerr OBE MD FRCPE FRCPaed
Paediatrician and researcher into Rett syndrome
Born 28th July 1938, in Changzhi, China
Died 4th March 2024, in Wengen, Switzerland, of a presumed cardiovascular event, aged 85
Granddaughter of one of the first women to qualify in medicine and daughter of a medical missionary in China, Alison Kerr was a distinguished paediatrician and neonatologist who pioneered the study and care of children with Rett syndrome.
The Glasgow paediatrician, Alison Kerr was born in Changzhi, China, in 1938, daughter to Scots, Marjorie and Gordon Anderson. Gordon, a doctor, and his wife ran a small hospital for the China Inland Mission. Gordon had also been born in China to missionary parents. His mother, Alexandrina Ross Anderson (1869-1932) had been one of the first women to qualify in medicine, graduating from the College of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children at a time when women were excluded from most medical schools in the UK. In 1937 the 2nd Sino-Japanese war and by 1939 they found themselves in a war zone. Alison’s father was one of three missionary doctors in the area overseeing two large hospitals and caring for many wounded. He worked to exhaustion and tragically died from typhoid fever in 1939, just before Alison’s 1st birthday and as the Japanese invasion began.
Many of their contemporaries were detained but Marjorie escaped with the two children and travelled back to Scotland via Canada, then in convoy across the Atlantic, finally arriving at Kincraig, where she taught in the village school for the duration of the war. The family then moved to Edinburgh where Alison attended Mary Erskine School. She did well and decided to pursue a career in medicine, ignoring advice that it wasn’t a suitable profession for a girl. She attended Edinburgh Medical School, graduating in 1963. After house posts in Edinburgh, she worked in Sheffield as an SHO in paediatrics with Prof Illingworth and obtained the DCH. She married her fellow student, Tom Kerr in 1965 and, following the births of their two children, she continued to work part-time in multiple locum posts from Bristol to Newmarket and Aberdeen while he trained in orthopaedic surgery. In 1974 she resumed formal part-time paediatric registrar appointments and determinedly studied for the Edinburgh MRCP, passing it after several attempts in 1978. This allowed her to move to a senior registrar post in Glasgow when her husband was appointed consultant in Stirling. She completed formal training in paediatrics and neonatology and was appointed senior lecturer in Glasgow University and consultant paediatrician in 1985.
Towards the end of her specialist training, she had become interested in a group of girls with severe learning disability, a syndrome described by Andreas Rett. She was impressed by the charm and sociability of these children who had previously been assumed to have a form of autism. Her career then took a different direction, and she dedicated the rest of her working life to defining and investigating the clinical features of Rett Syndrome. She collaborated with a wide circle of colleagues in centres around the world and won the support and trust of the families of the UK Rett Association who helped to fund her work. She was an enthusiastic proponent of tailored and effective interventions such as music therapy and is fondly remembered as a very kind and concerned clinician by families who took their daughters to specialist clinics for investigation and diagnosis.
She published many papers, edited and contributed to books, and travelled widely giving lectures and holding clinics in which she would take time with the whole family of affected girls. She was appointed OBE for services to medicine in 2003 and awarded an MD with distinction by Edinburgh University in 2006. She was delighted when, towards the end of her working life, advances in genetics and neuro-biochemistry led to a better understanding of the pathogenesis of Rett syndrome, bringing the realistic prospect of future treatment for the condition.
In retirement Alison directed her considerable energy to her many interests, notably playing her cello in chamber groups and passing music exams to grade 8. She and Tom regularly went on mountaineering and geological trips in Scotland and abroad, and always took a sketchbook which she filled with ink and watercolour drawings.
She was a regular carer for and developed close relationships with her 4 grandchildren and willingly gave support to friends and family whenever she could. Following the death of her artist sister, Marjorie Campbell, she devoted time to cataloguing her art, organising several retrospective exhibitions and arranging for Marjorie's paintings to be displayed through the Art in Hospitals Scheme. The addition of a German son-in-law in 1991 inspired her to learn German.
Alison moved back to Edinburgh following Tom's death in 2017, embracing the change with her usual determination and optimism, volunteering for local groups, joining a new orchestra and making new friends despite the challenges of advancing age. She died suddenly but peacefully while on holiday with her son, daughter, their partners and all her grandchildren.
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Dr Jan Kerr
Malcolm Kerr