William Simpson Kammerer, M.D., F.A.C.P.

William Simpson Kammerer, M.D., F.A.C.P., a physician and professor of Internal Medicine and Tropical Medicine, died October 9, 2020 in Jacksonville, Florida after a long illness. He was 81.  A long-time resident of Jacksonville and Saint Augustine, Dr. Kammerer retired from the Mayo Clinic’s Jacksonville Campus in 2003.

Following completion of his medical training, he spent 17 years as an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, PA, and for many years before his retirement he was a Consultant in Medicine in Executive and International Medicine Department at the Jacksonville Campus of the Mayo Clinic.  He was widely known for his work on Echinococcal (parasitic) disease and was the author of many scholarly articles and books. Early in his career, he engaged in extensive periods of training and research overseas, including assignments in Argentina, Haiti, Rhodesia, Honduras, India and Ecuador. He served for two years as a captain with the U.S. Army Green Berets Special Forces at Fort Bragg, NC.

William S. Kammerer was born in New York City on June 19, 1939. His father, William H. Kammerer, M.D., was a clinical professor of medicine at Cornell-Weill New York Hospital and Director of Rheumatology at the Hospital for Special Surgery, also in New York. His mother, Edith Langley, was a homemaker. He graduated from Phillips Academy, in Andover, MA, and received his BS degree from Cornell University, where he was a member of the polo team and the Sigma Chi fraternity. He subsequently studied veterinary medicine for two years at Cornell before transferring to the Weill-Cornell Medical School in New York City, where he received his medical degree in 1965. He served his Internship at the Louisiana State University Charity Hospital in New Orleans, LA, and his Residency in Internal Medicine at the Fletcher-Allen University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington, VT.

His interest in veterinary medicine reflected a life-long love of animals. For many years, he kept horses and dogs at farms he owned in both Pennsylvania and Florida. He was also an avid sailor and took many sailing trips with his family in the waters off New England, the Chesapeake Bay and the Caribbean. In retirement, he traveled widely with his wife throughout Europe and South America and was devoted to his children and grandchildren.

Survivors include his beloved wife of 27 years, Janet Hoffman, of Jacksonville, FL; From his marriage to Sonia Netherton three children, Christopher Kammerer, of West Palm Beach, FL, Cal  Kammerer, of Holly Springs, NC, and Stacey Collins, of Hershey, Pa; two step-daughters, Kate Nicolson of Lennox Head, Australia, and Kelly Hoffman, of Fairview, NC; eight grandchildren, and two sisters Athleen and Hilary and a brother Kelly.