After retirement, he and Toni moved to Minneapolis.
Professor Gilchrist met his wife, Toni Besset in 1967, on a flight from Houston to Los Angeles where they connected over the novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. He also played significant roles in the activities of the Children’s Cancer Group, was a director of the ABP, and a member of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Residency Review Committee for Paediatrics. He chaired the National Childhood Cancer Foundation’s Medical Advisory Committee, the American Board of Paediatrics (ABP) Sub Board of Paediatric Haematology-Oncology, the American Academy of Paediatric section on Haematology/Oncology, and its Council on Sections. From 1981 to 2000, he directed the Mayo Comprehensive Haemophilia Centre. He served as Helen C Levitt Professor for 12 years, and chair of paediatric and adolescent medicine at Mayo Clinic and Mayo Medical School. He was born in Springs, in the east of Johannesburg and graduated from Wits in 1957. Paediatric haematologist-oncologist Professor Gerald “Gerry” Gilchrist (MBBCh 1957) passed away in his home in Minneapolis, US on 10 April 2022.
