Charles Doan

Charles Austin Doan, MD (1896 – 1990) came to The Ohio State University in 1930 as a professor of medicine and the director of the Department of Medical and Surgical Research. Doan wrote 250 articles during his career and was dean emeritus when he retired in 1961 but continued to work long after. 

Doan occupied several additional roles throughout his time at Ohio State, including professor of research medicine, chair for Department of Medicine, dean for the College of Medicine, physician-in-chief at Starling Loving and St. Francis Hospitals, director of Starling Loving Hospital, director of University Hospital and Health Center and chief for Division of Hematology.  

Doan was also chair for the Hematology Study Section, president of the American Society of Hematology, and special consultant to the U.S. Department of State and the National Cancer Institute. He served as an editor of Blood and the Journal of Hematology. He helped establish blood banking and the volunteer donor program while he was a member of the Medical Advisory Board and the American Red Cross. 

Doan was born in 1896 in Nelsonville, Ohio. After high school, he enrolled at Hiram College but left during his senior year on November 7, 1917, to join the U.S. Army Medical Corps where he served in World War I and World War II. After his military service, he enrolled at the University of Cincinnati and later Johns Hopkins Medical School. In 1923, he received his MD and joined the Department of Medicine at Harvard University. 

Doan encouraged the development of the Ohio State College of Nursing, and acquired funding for what became Upham and Means Halls. He was the single individual most responsible for the conception of and fundraising for what was to be the new University Hospital which was completed in 1951. University Hospital was renamed Doan Hall in 1984 to honor his contribution.   

Further Reading 

Doan, Charles A. Clinical Implications of Modern Physiologic Hematology. Saint Paul: Bruce Publishing Co, 1936. 

Doan, Charles A. “The Spleen: its Structure and Functions.” Postgraduate Medicine 43, no. 5 (May 1968):126-131. 

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