Heather Hunter, occupational therapist. Born: 22 August 1959 in Edinburgh. Died: 26 April 2024, aged 64
Heather Hunter was a distinguished occupational remedy (OT) educational and clinician, specialising in psychological well being of youngsters and households, volunteering, and participatory motion analysis.
Born in Edinburgh to Iain Crawford, a amount surveyor, and his spouse Isabella (nee Murray), a authorized secretary, Heather attended James Gillespie’s Excessive College after which Queen Margaret College, Edinburgh, the place she accomplished a diploma in occupational remedy in 1980.
Heather had a lifelong curiosity in psychological well being and labored for the perfect a part of twenty years at nearly each hospital within the Central Belt of Scotland earlier than shifting into academia, lecturing at her alma mater, Queen Margaret College in Edinburgh, for 25 years and turning into a champion of making use of psychoanalytic considering to occupational remedy.
Her first job was as an occupational therapist within the social work division at Lothian Regional Council (1980-83), after which she spent the subsequent 16 years as a senior OT in hospital settings, at Royal Edinburgh hospital (1983-90), the Royal Hospital for Sick Kids in Glasgow (1990-92), St John’s Hospital in Livingston (1992-95) and the Royal Hospital for Sick Kids, Edinburgh (1995-99). Primarily she labored in psychological well being models offering acute companies for kids and younger individuals.
Whereas within the final of these posts she additionally started lecturing at Queen Margaret, and in 1999 she joined it full-time as programme chief for its occupational remedy diploma programme.
Heather taught at Queen Margaret College for some 25 years, finally turning into Programme Chief of the Occupational Remedy programme. She championed psychodynamic psychoanalytic considering in OT by her educating.
Heather’s educational work was sensible and considerate. She gained a PHD in 2020. In 2005 she was appointed a member of the Psychological Well being Tribunal for Scotland, which hears functions for, and appeals towards obligatory therapy orders. She fulfilled that function till her dying.
A transparent thinker with large concepts, Heather taught her college students with creativeness and rigour. She was an open one who gave of herself in all that she did. Colleagues describe her kindness and generosity in sharing her data and experience to nurture the subsequent technology of OTs.
Her ardour for OT, power, sense of function and dedication to advocating for the truthful and equitable therapy of these fighting psychological well being, are a loss to the occupation.
At all times stylishly wearing a punky aesthetic, with pink lipstick and black Dr Marten boots, she lower a bodacious determine wherever she went, whether or not striding by the corridors of NHS hospitals or educational establishments. A mischievous smile continuously crinkled up her eyes and he or she had an infectious chuckle.
Heather’s household was central to her life and coronary heart and her purpose for being. She is survived by her husband, Craig Hunter, whom she married in 1991, their kids, Murray and Marsali, her mom and her sister Gillian.
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