John R. Davis

Dr. John Russell Davis, a Baltimore doctor who was chief medical director of C&P Telephone Co. for nearly four decades and a private physician who made house calls until he retired six years ago, died in Ruxton. He was 83 years old and died of heart failure after a long illness.

Dr. Davis, known to many as "John R," lived in North Baltimore near the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, where he served on the medical staff and as secretary-treasurer of the medical board.

He was known for his gentle demeanor and for being a master diagnostician, said his wife, Joann Splane Davis. "He could almost see you from across the room and diagnose what you had," she said.

Dr. Davis was born in July 1917 in Weston, W.Va., where he spent his childhood before attending the University of West Virginia in Morgantown. He moved east to attend the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, where he earned his medical degree in 1942. 

Three years later, he became chief medical director of C&P Telephone Co. of Maryland. He held the part-time position until 1983. In that job, he supervised doctors and nurses taking care of sick employees and looking into occupational injuries. Although much of his work was administrative, he also saw patients and conducted physicals. 

He met his wife while working at C&P, and they married in 1965. He served in the Navy from 1955 to 1957 as commander of the U.S. Naval Reserve in Bethesda Naval Hospital. He had a private practice in internal medicine with offices in the Medical Arts Building in Mount Vernon. Dr. Davis made house calls until he retired in 1994, his wife said.

Dr. Davis served as president of the medical staff of what is now Mercy Medical Center in the 1960s and chairman of the Maryland Medical Chirurgical Society in 1976 and 1977. He also served on the National Council on Alcoholism and was a member of the Commission of Medical Discipline.

Dr. Charles A. Haile, GBMC chief of staff, worked with Dr. Davis at the medical center and wrote: "I remember John in particular for his thoroughness with patients, and his ability to prioritize significant medical problems in his unhurried manner."

When Dr. Davis wasn't seeing patients, he could often be found fishing or at Baltimore Colts football games.