Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

KERR GRANT Allan AO RFD ED MD MD FRCP, FRCPE FRACP

1924 – 2009

Allan Kerr Grant (“Kerro”) was born on 29th October 1924 in Adelaide. He was the third son of Sir Kerr Grant, Professor of Physics at the University of Adelaide, and Kate Macaulay, nee Moffatt. His surname was Grant but throughout his life he used the name Kerr Grant and this biography will refer to him as Kerr Grant, as he would have wished. He was educated at St Peter’s College. Although he matriculated early he remained at school another year before studying medicine at the University of Adelaide, commencing in 1941, and graduated MB BS in 1947. Kerr Grant completed a year at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, followed by two years in London studying gastroenterology. Prior to leaving for the United Kingdom he married Mary Hone, daughter of Dr Ray Hone, a physician. They subsequently had three sons and a daughter. After completing his studies in England Kerr Grant returned to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where he worked until 1959. This was combined with teaching medical students at the University of Adelaide. He moved to TQEH in 1959, and five years later he became the first Director of the Gastroenterology Unit. He was elected president of the Gastroenterological Society of Australia in 1969.

Kerr Grant joined the CMF as a Captain on 20th July 1955 in Central Command and was immediately promoted to temporary Major due to his specialist medical skills.  He was confirmed in the rank of Major in December 1958.  He was posted as OC Medicine in 3rd General Hospital, in 1960 at the temporary rank of Lieutenant Colonel and transferred to the Reserve of Officers in March 1964. He was appointed and posted to HQ Central Command as a consultant physician, in October 1964.  Kerr Grant was placed on full time duty, for fifteen weeks, with the regular Army, on the 28th November 1968, to serve as a consultant physician at 1 Aust Fd Hosp in  Vung Tau, South Vietnam. His physician skills were needed to help combat the medical conditions that plagued the Australian Army in Vietnam’s tropical environment.  Several illnesses were difficult and time consuming to diagnose and treat, such as worm infestations, scrub typhus and dysentery. Kerr Grant’s workload in 1 Aust Fd Hosp was compounded when the Army decided not to replace the departing psychiatrist, on the grounds that there were only a few psychiatric patients, and he was tasked to take on psychiatric cases.  Kerr Grant found this extra task, coupled with his other medical work, burdensome and on return to Australia argued successfully for the psychiatrist’s position to be reinstated. He returned to the CMF after his tour of Vietnam and promoted to Colonel in June 1978.  He continued in the Reserve until retiring on 28th October 1984. He was issued the Australian Active Service Medal 1945 -1946, the Vietnam Medal, and awarded the Reserve Forces Decoration and the Efficiency Decoration.

Concurrently with his military career Kerr Grant advanced his medical career and became the president of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 1981.  He was also the medical director of South Australian Postgraduate Medical Education Association (SAPMEA) and a member of the Medical Board of South Australia.  He retired from the staff of TQEH after 25 years’ service. He then took up positions at FMC and Flinders University.  He had a long association with Flinders as he had been consulted, in 1966, by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Peter Karmel, over the planning, development and implementation of the medical school at Flinders University. He also participated in teaching students in the medical wards once the school had been established. Teaching medical students and mentoring junior doctors was a passion of Kerr Grant. 

Through his service on the Medical Board a Council for Early Postgraduate Training in South Australia was created for junior doctors, in 1995. This Council, has now become a statutory body answerable to the Minister for Health. Kerr Grant was made an Officer of the Order of Australia, in January 1991, in recognition of his service to medicine, particularly in the field of gastroenterology and to medical education.  He also gained a Doctorate from the University of Adelaide in 1985, and a Flinders University Honorary Doctorate of Medicine in April 1996. Kerr Grant had many extra-curricular pursuits. Early in his life he was an enthusiastic player and follower of university rugby, social tennis in the summer and golf at Mount Lofty. He was an avid supporter of the opera and ballet. His great interest, in his later years, was fishing and he fished off the beach and reef at Robe, or from a boat in American River, Coffin Bay, or Ceduna. Kerr Grant was also interested in ornithology and photography. He was a member of the Adelaide Ornithologists Club and left to the club the collection of his pictures of birds taken in Australia and in the UK. He and Mary enjoyed gardening and she recollects that he was the best propagator of Rhododendrons in South Australia. Sadly he developed Alzheimer’s and spent the end of his life at the War Veteran’s Home at Myrtlebank.   Allan Kerr Grant died on 7th July 2009.  He was survived by his wife Mary and their four children.

Source

Blood, Sweat and Fears II: Medical Practitioners of South Australia on Active Service After World War 2 to Vietnam 1945-197.

Summers, Swain, Jelly, Verco

Uploaded by Annette Summers AO RFD