Interview Professor David Kerr: Answering the call of duty.

P rofessor David Kerr has come a long way from the tenements of Glasgow as his five-page curriculum vitae will tell you.

"That's the shorter version," he says, giving it a dismissive wave of the hand. "It's mainly research stuff and papers I've written."

The document however, does not read like it was dashed off on a wet Sunday afternoon.

Born in Glasgow in May 1956, David James Kerr is married with one son and two daughters. He has a first class honours degree in biochemistry; an MSc in clinical pharmacology, as well as a PhD and something called a DSc.

Professor Kerr got that in 1997 and he is very proud of it, pointing to an encyclopedic-shaped bound tome that looks as though it is propping up an entire bookshelf.

These qualifications are listed under Science because there is a Medical section too. Then there are his three current jobs listed under Present Posts. These include Professor of Clinical Oncology (the study of the science of cancer) and Clinical Director of Birmingham University's CRC Institute for Cancer Studies as well as being Honorary Professor of the Department of Pharmacy/Pharmacology at the University of Strathclyde.

A list of some 20 research grants is summarised as "a competitive grant income of around pounds 2 million per year". Then there are the 19 Committees, Working Parties and other Professional Groups he is a member of, including the Association of Cancer Physicians and the European Association for Cancer Research.

Finally Membership of Executive Committees is divided into Local, National and International followed by two-and-a-half pages of Recent Publications. I feel depressed just reading it.

It might not surprise you to learn that Professor Kerr only took his first family holiday last year, "two weeks in Australia", which he describes as "remarkably good fun". He adds, staring into space: "I thought there was loss in that."

What does he mean? Is there loss when distraction takes him away from his work? He calls it "a captivating hobby, which has become my work and now all of my life and is rewarding in so many, different ways".

He seems to accept the fact he has limited time to spend with his three children, who once failed to notice his absence when he took a two-week conference trip to the United States.

Or is there loss because he so rarely gets the chance to spend time with his family? He is so used to being the "commando, out on the frontline of cancer" that he does not appear to know how to just be. Anyway he does not explain.

Professor Kerr does say that he cannot be away for more than a week and the good thing about Australia was that he could not sneak back to the lab and his work, which in summary is the vocation of finding treatments and cures for cancer.

"I've always been intellectually active," he admits but he does not appear a manic type. Just very focused and unafraid of graft.

He has never touched a drop of alcohol, signing the pledge when he was eight, although his father thought he was mad and "tossed it into the fire". He has also been drug-free all his life and has been married since he was 23 to "a nice girl I met when we did biochemistry at Glasgow University". Annie is now a research fellow at Birmingham University's department of nursing studies.

The hand of a man who has been described as a "genius" is soft and dry, the voice a lilting Scottish tune that hardens only slightly when he swears, which is often. "I swear a lot," he says matter-of-factly. Professor Kerr has blue black hair the colour of a raven's feather, but does not look you in the eye.

A cup of tea is offered, which is gratefully received because I am late. I could not see the Institute because it is currently surrounded by scaffolding, another annexe built at Professor Kerr's instigation.

As soon as we sit down a pager goes off. Professor Kerr quickly leaves his office and I assume this will turn into the rhythm of our meeting. A rucksack collapsed on the floor has a patch sewn on which reads Patrick Thistle Football Club. A model of Daffy Duck on his desk sits on the words, "Workaholic".

In fact he gives me three hours of his time because he doesn't feel like working today. What are three hours in the life of a workaholic, when five years of laboratory work have just been invested in a radically new cancer treatment? It is called gene therapy and it is a cancer treatment designed to attack cancer cells.

"It's being manufactured at the moment and trials should begin in November," he says. He does not look that excited about it. Isn't it exciting? "It's the result of strong team work and it could only come out of Birmingham."

Professor Kerr often brings up the words "ego" and "competition", yet talks about his work with the other professors in the Institute in glowing terms. Phrases such as "common goal" and "shared knowledge" are used a lot.

"It's because we're all from slightly different armies. We're all big agents and we're all important in our fields but we can come together as equals and drive through our ideas. This Institute is competing with the Oxbridge universities and it's competing internationally and you can only do that if you work together. I am used to team support.

"We all work hard and we all take our work home which is always true of people at the highest level. It's not an occupation for part-timers."

Yes it is all a long way from Glasgow and the "back streets" where he was raised, "when you had to whistle while you were sitting on the toilet".

Now Professor Kerr is getting more animated because I have asked him to describe his background. "My wife doesn't believe me when I describe my background. She makes me feel like I'm 102. But we had an outside toilet and a bath on Sundays. That was tenement life and this was the 1950s and 1960s.

"Every landing shared a toilet and there were four families on our landing. We all lived in the same world."

Professor Kerr describes himself as a "strange child" who read very early. He decided he wanted to be a doctor from the age of four when he read AJ Cronin's book The Citadel.

"I thought it was the most fantastic thing I had ever read." But you were four? "Yes, I just devoured books as a child and AJ Cronin was my favourite. The main character is this idealistic young doctor which I wanted to be and I became but then you get older and do different things."

He got hold of a copy of the book recently for his daughter who is thinking about going into medicine. "She really liked it," he said.

"But I wonder sometimes. They live in a very big old house and they're quite nice children, but they get such a lot without thinking about where it comes from."

His mother was an auxiliary nurse, father an ambulanceman. Life got easier when the family moved into a council house in a typical "garden suburb" in Newton Mearns. Professor Kerr went to a special school for the top ten per cent of children from the local schools and got a place at the University of Glasgow when he was 16.

He says he had a really good time at medical school but never really came to terms with his shyness until he got married.

Mother had died at 14 from a heart attack while Professor Kerr was sitting beside her. Father died 13 years ago from cancer.

But he remembers his father's determination to ensure his son could mix and talk to his patients. "He made me do a series of holiday jobs, so I was mixing with people and forced to come out of my shell. I was a bin man and an auxiliary nurse and for several years I had a job behind the bar at the British Legion Club. My father got me the job but they couldn't work me out at all because I was teetotal."

So you never, ever tasted a drop, despite all that temptation? "No. I guess it's just part of my wanting to be in control all the time."

He says his work has taken him round the world many times. "It's important because I'm like an evangelist, spreading the word.

"But every time I walk through an airport in America I think of my parents. The thing that gets me is this. I earn a good wage. I have a very comfortable life, too comfortable maybe, and I'm in a position to do so much for my parents.

"It would be so easy for me now to take them to America. Every time I walk through an airport I think, why couldn't I bring them with me, buy them a house or a car, wander round Venice or take my mother to the opera?"

Instead he spends his life helping others. "I know I am in a strong power base to accomplish change. I know men and women of influence who want to improve health care and delivery.

"I am a Socialist as most people from Glasgow are and I've worked with the Labour Party for many years.

"There is a very real potential to deliver healthcare. It's not just about throwing money at the system, but also about organisation and thinking things through and equality of access.

"My grandmother used to say, 'Hell mend them' when she saw an alcoholic on the street but I cannot consign these people to the dustbin. You can try and hold up a mirror and let them see the harm they are doing to themselves. But clearly there is a lot of self-esteem involved and jobs and investment have to be delivered too."

Equality of access is the Government's latest buzzword and cancer statistics bear out the theory that background and privilege determine your chances of survival.

If there is a treatment out there, Professor Kerr knows about it. He describes patient care as his "anchor".

Despite his importance and the level of bureaucracy he is swimming in, the Professor reckons half his time is spent with patients.

"If something happens in the wards we have first call. If that call of duty comes then everything else falls aside. That to me makes sense. I might be combining careers in medicine and science but medical needs must always drive the way.

"Patients are often dead nervous and scared. If we cannot make the cancer go away completely we can still be normally decent and kind.

"You've got to be decently kind and prepared to give a bit of yourself to every person you see. You give love, not romantic love, but the love of a sister, mother, brother and father. Patients want you to love them because they think you will pull out all the stops for them.

"That means there is a lot of power imbued in me and it seems reasonable to replicate that back by showing genuine care and treating them like individuals."

Patients always want to know how much time they have left. "Why do you need to know? It's normal life.

"Nothing is lonelier than learning you have cancer. But the most important things are what you have already, family and friends, a clean bed and a hand to hold."

He asks me what I would do if told I had terminal cancer. I have never really thought about it and I trot out an answer about sticking close to my family.

"I wouldn't," he laughs, for the first time. "I would scram to Venezuela. I've always wanted to see the Angel Falls, the highest falls in the world. I'm just waiting for the right person to go with."

Article Details

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Author:	Lynch, Finola
Publication:	The Birmingham Post (England)
Date:	Jul 17, 1999
Words:	2003
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