Professor Kerstin Albertsson Wikland was at the forefront in pioneering the emerging specialty of paediatric endocrinology from the mid-1970s. Her gift to this established field of medicine is a rich legacy of research on child growth and development. Over a career spanning several decades her work produced insights which helped improve the diagnosis and treatment of children with growth disorders.
Both within and beyond Sweden, Professor Albertsson Wikland developed a global reputation as a research collaborator and leader. She helped establish protocols for paediatric endocrinology that are still in use today, combining her clinical expertise with a deep compassion for her patients. She pursued a lifelong interest in the complex hormonal processes that regulate child growth. Her early career coincided with the development of recombinant human growth hormone, one of the first treatments to arise from the technology of genetic engineering. At this time, she became a significant contributor to the study KIGS, which provided valuable insights into the growth of children who received this new treatment and generated a large number of peer-reviewed publications.
The software developed to operate KIGS is one of the first examples of an electronic patient management tool, ubiquitous in modern medicine. Developed for Pfizer, by PC PAL, it set the standard for growth monitoring software and was the first such software to offer valuable decision support to the user, so directly benefiting them for the data collection effort. Professor Albertsson Wikland introduced a customized version for her growth clinic at Växthuset (in Gothenburg, Sweden) to further assist with the daily routines in the clinic while combining practical tools with data collection for in-house as well as company sponsored research. Her complete dedication to her field drove an unrivalled output of clinical research, which is possibly not compatible with the institutional demands of medicine in the current age. Through 400+ publications, many education initiatives and sheer inspiration, her impact on child growth and endocrinology is both profound and enduring.
PC PAL had the pleasure of supporting Professor Albertsson Wikland, over three decades, not only in her clinic but also with her research projects, world-wide presentations and celebrating the prestigious Andrea Prader award in Washington 2017. A significant milestone, for Swedish healthcare, was established around the turn of the century when Professor Albertsson Wikland led the project to develop a new set of growth charts for use in primary care, hospital care as well as in schools; they became the national standard both in traditional paper format, and also in computerized versions as the use electronic medical records became established in routine clinical practice.
Her legacy will live on, not only through the charts, growth references and other science that bears her name, but also through her ideas and inspiration.
