Dr. Charles Francis O'Donnell, who practiced medicine in Baltimore County for 58 years and, as a deputy medical examiner, was called to the scene of many cases of accidental and unattended death, died December 28, 2002 of a heart attack at his Timonium home. He was 85 and formerly resided in Towson.
A family physician who was still making house calls in his Cadillac DeVille until August, he had treated three and four generations of some Towson and Dundalk families during his lengthy career.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., he did not graduate from high school but passed the New York State Regents examination. He studied chemical engineering at the Johns Hopkins University before earning his medical degree at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1944. Soon after, he established a medical practice south of Towson at York and Wilton roads, where he saw patients in the basement of his home.
"I think he vaccinated all of Towson during the polio epidemic of the 1950s," said a daughter, Mimi O'Donnell of Ellicott City. "We were boiling needles upstairs. The line for the vaccine went out the door and around the corner."
In 1952, he was appointed a deputy state medical examiner for Baltimore County -- a position in which he remained active until becoming ill this year. While he was called to traffic accidents and disasters, his duties most often involved signing death certificates at the homes of people who lacked a doctor.
"Charlie was an absolute institution in Baltimore County, " said Michael J. Ruck Sr., a funeral director and friend. "In his capacity as deputy medical examiner, he comforted and helped families who had suffered an unanticipated death. I recall him so well with a family when their child drowned at Loch Raven. He had the gift of consoling people."
Family members said that the only time they saw him cry was at fire scenes when children were killed. They said he often stitched wounds at his home office in the days when the closest emergency room to Towson was several miles away, at Union Memorial Hospital.
"Charlie's practice spanned 58 years. He was able to take care of four generations of a family," said Dr. Mark R. Stromberg, a Baltimore County physician. "Patients have told me stories of him giving vaccines to newborns on the dining room table. I've never seen the love patients had for him. He was an exceptional doctor because he knew his patients so well. He did house calls from the beginning to the very end of his career."
Dr. O'Donnell was also team and college physician in the 1970s at what is now Towson University. Over the years, he held positions as medical adviser to the old Harry T. Campbell crushed stone company, and medical director for Bendix Field Engineering Corp. Through Bendix, he worked to equip ambulances with radio telemetry devices used in diagnosing patients who are critically ill or injured.
He was a former medical director of the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School in Cub Hill, formerly the Maryland Training School for Boys. In recognition of his service, its infirmary bears his name.
He was president of the Maryland Academy of Family Practice in 1951 and the Baltimore County Medical Association in 1952. A longtime member of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, he served a year as its president in 1962-63. He was board chairman of Blue Shield of Maryland from 1964 to 1983.
He won numerous awards, including being named 1960 Doctor of the Year in Baltimore County, Maryland Doctor of the Year in 1962, and the Ancient Order of Hibernians' Man of the Year in 1977.
Baltimore Sun Obituary, December 31, 2002
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