John Douglas Allison was educated at Queen's College Cambridge and St Mary's Hospital. His first post after qualification was as casualty officer and house surgeon at St Mary's Hospital. Thereafter he specialised in orthopaedics, being in succession senior house officer and later registrar at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. He moved to Oxford as registrar in the accident service at the Radcliffe Infirmary, before returning as senior registrar at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. He went to Portsmouth in 1972 as consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Portsmouth group of hospitals, and remained there until he died in 1995.