Donald Kerr Grant (KG) was the second-born of the three sons of Professor (later Sir) Kerr Grant, a well-respected occupant of the chair of physics in the University of Adelaide, and Kate (nee Moffatt). He was educated at St Peter's College, Adelaide, and started his medical course just two years before World War II. Consequently, like so many of his generation, after graduation and a short residency at the RAH, he joined the armed forces in 1944, electing to serve in the RANR. He remained in the navy until 1948, much of this time in the heavy cruiser Shropshire (a gift from Britain) with the rank of surgeon lieutenant-commander. On resuming civilian life in Adelaide, KG became a medical registrar at the RAH where, as a returned serviceman and experienced doctor, he was greatly admired by the young RMOs whose work he tactfully supervised. He also participated fully in the social life of the resident staff, very ably organizing various entertainments where his excellent baritone voice and keen sense of fun were considerable assets. Many of his colleagues of those days will recall KG's ability to assume various accents and voices to suit the roles he could play, even off the stage, for the amusement of his friends.

Donald married Elayne Kryger in Sydney in 1949, and in 1950 joined the Clinical Research Unit at the RPAH in that city for the next two years. He was then awarded a Nuffield Dominion Travelling Fellowship which took him to the United Kingdom where he worked in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and in the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London, until 1954. A Fulbright Travelling Fellowship after that took him to Cincinatti, Ohio, as a senior resident physician in the Children's Hospital. Their first daughter was born whilst Donald and Elayne were in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and their second one after the family had returned in 1955 to Sydney where Donald commenced private paediatric practice combined with a part-time appointment in the Institute of Child Health at the RAHC. He did not enjoy this mode of life and elected to go back in 1958 to the United States where he spent the rest of his paediatric career, apart from several periods of postgraduate work in Europe including an extended time in the department of developmental neurology at Groningen, The Netherlands.

His first American appointment on his return from Australia was in the clinic of child development in Columbus, Ohio, after which, in 1961, he moved to Buffalo, NY. There, over the next twenty-one years, he held various consultant positions in the Buffalo Children's Hospital and associate professorships in the department of pediatrics in the State University of New York at Buffalo, until his retirement in 1982. During those long years in Buffalo Donald appeared to his friends gradually to be losing his former zest for life but never his love for paediatrics and Australia. However, by the time of his retirement his two grown-up daughters had settled in England so it was logical for him and Elayne to choose that country as their home thenceforth. There they lived quietly in Essex with regular holidays in Spain, and it was at Marbella, on the Mediterranean coast of the peninsula, that he was killed on 10 February 1985 by a car whilst crossing a notoriously dangerous road shortly after arriving there once again to enjoy the winter sunshine. Although Donald had been away from Australia for over twenty-five years he always had a steady stream of old friends visiting him from this country. He held a firm place in their affections and they were assured of a warm welcome as well as a most amusing time whilst in his company. His accidental death so soon after retirement was a tragedy that saddened many people who still regard him as one of the really memorable personalities of their era. A good measure of the man can be gleaned from his photograph.