Avedis Donabedian: father of quality assurance and poet

Abstract

Avedis Donabedian was born in Beirut, Lebanon on 7 January 1919. As a child he moved to a small town near Jerusalem in Palestine (now Israel) after his family fled the Armenian holocaust. However, in Palestine he experienced the social turmoil of that region. Although a Christian, he had Jewish, Arab, and Christian friends as he was growing up in Palestine.1 At the interpersonal level he was able to circumvent social and political obstacles. Years later Donabedian attended the American University of Beirut where he received a BA degree in 1940 and an MD degree in 1944. He served as a general practitioner physician in Jerusalem and Beirut until 1954 when he moved to Boston. In 1955 he graduated from the Harvard School of Public Health with an MPH degree (magna cum laude). He taught preventive medicine at the New York Medical College from 1957 to 1961. The School of Public Health at The University of Michigan recruited him in 1961, and he remained there for 28 years. In 1979 he was honored as the Nathan Sinai Distinguished Professor of Public Health at the University of Michigan in recognition of his contributions in public health. He retired in 1989 but continued to serve as emeritus professor until his death on 9 November 2000 after a 28 year battle with prostate cancer. In 1969 Donabedian received the Dean Conley Award by the American College of Hospital Administrators and in 1976 he was presented with the George Welch Medal by the American Medical Association. He was one of the original members inaugurated into the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He was an honorary member of …