Donald Balfour

Donald Church Balfour (August 22, 1882 – July 25, 1963) was a Canadian medical educator and surgeon who specialized in gastrointestinal surgery. He worked at the Mayo Clinic from 1907 until 1947, and was director of the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research from 1937 to 1947.

Biography Balfour was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1882 and was educated at the Hamilton Collegiate Institute. He attended the University of Toronto, earning an M.B. degree in 1906 and M.D. in 1914. During his internship at Hamilton General Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario, he worked with the surgeon Ingersoll Olmsted, who recommended him to William James Mayo and Charles Horace Mayo. In 1909 he became a junior surgeon and in 1912 he was promoted to head of a division of general surgery in what is now known as the Mayo Clinic. In 1910 he married William J. Mayo's daughter, Carrie Mayo. He received the American Medical Association's Distinguished Service Award in 1955 and the American Gastroenterological Association's Friedenwald Medal in 1956. He served as president of the American College of Surgeons, chaired the surgical division of the American Medical Association, and co-founded the American Board of Surgery. He was also a founding member of the World Medical Association.

Balfour held honorary fellowships of various international surgical colleges—the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, and Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada—as well as the Royal Society of Medicine and the Académie Nationale de Médecine. Throughout his career he was awarded honorary degrees from the University of Toronto, Northwestern University, McMaster University, Carleton College and St. Olaf College.