DR. JAMES DORNAN

Dr. James Dornan, MBChB, CRCP(C), FRCPC, LMCC, DABPMR, DipTP, MCSP, died peacefully, at the age of 94 on Sunday, May 4, 2025, at the Balmoral Northcare Home, Glasgow, with family present. James was born into a proud working class family in Scotstoun, Glasgow, in 1931. After leaving St. Mungo's Academy, he trained in Bath as a Physiotherapist in 1949, while also playing football with Bath City and Merthyr Tydfill. He briefly considered making a career as a professional footballer, but was advised to continue his studies by an older and wiser sportsman. He undertook his National Service in the RAF, working as a Physiotherapist at Headley Court. The RAF offered him a commision to stay on as Physiotherapy instructor, but instead he returned to Glasgow and qualified as Teacher in Physiotherapy at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, where he taught until 1958. He met his wife, Isabella Cairns, at the University of Glasgow, and they were married on Boxing Day, 1956, He then studied medicine at the University of Glasgow, where he was the Lorimar Bursary winner in Anatomy, completing his studies in 1964. After his residency year, he returned to the Deptartment of Anatomy at the University as an Anatomy Instructor until 1967, when he immigrated with his family to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1967 for Residency Training in Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan Hospital. He moved from Saskatoon to Toronto in 1971, where he was on the attending staff of the Western Hospital until 1975. He then took up the position of Physiatrist-in-Chief at the Toronto General Hospital (1975-1990) and as the Chief of Rehabilation Services at the then Queen Elizabeth Hospital, remaining there until 1999. Isabella Dornan meanwhile established as a career as a child psychologist, working at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry and teaching at York University. Throughout his time in hospital medicine, James championed rehabilitation medicine in Canada, and was pivotal in establishing the path that the field has followed in Toronto, where it is now world-leading. Later in his career, he established the Dornray Clinic, a private rehabilitation service which operated until 2009, as well as providing expert medico-legal opinions, both nationally and internationally. Throughout this time, he continued to travel the world with his wife and family, both for work and pleasure. He sailed his cabin cruiser, Sea Gal, up and down the North American east coast and travelled further afield on numerous ocean cruises. When his wife, Isabella, died in 2011, he began to spend more time visiting his children in the UK, purchasing a flat back in Glasgow in 2015. An avid golfer throughout his life, a gifted storyteller and a man of considerable charm, he leaves his children, Christopher, Rhona and Anthony, and their respective children, Veronika; Hannah and twins, Sam and Faith; and Darcy and Marley.