Malcolm Donaldson was born on 27 April 1884 and was educated at Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he gained a 3rd Class in the Natural Science Tripos in 1905. The most notable feature, however, of his university career was his keen interest in rowing, and in 1906 he won the University Sculls, and was in the eight competing with Oxford and Harvard. He came up to St Bartholomew's for his clinical course and passed the Conjoint examination in 1909 and took the Cambridge MB BCh degree in 1912. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1914, and of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1929. During the first world war he served in the RAMC as a surgical specialist, and shortly afterwards, in 1921, he was appointed assistant physician accoucheur to St Bartholomew's Hospital, having shown a special interest in obstetrics and gynaecology since holding the post of intern midwifery assistant in 1911. He was able to combine his work at Bart's with gynaecological posts at Mount Vernon and the Royal Northern Hospitals, and at the cottage hospitals at Brentford and Potters Bar. Quite early in his career he proceeded to devote his attention to radiotherapy, both with radium and X-rays, for uterine cancer, and was a pioneer in the treatment of cancer of the cervix by the insertion of radium needles by an intra-abdominal route. He was fortunate in having the collaboration of forward-looking radiotherapists at Mount Vernon Hospital as well as at Bart's, and was thus able to publish a book on radiotherapy in the diseases of women in 1933. He was Vice-Chairman of the National Radium Commission, and a member of the Radiology Committee of the Medical Research Council, and for several years he was the Director of the Cancer Research Department at St Bartholomew's. Donaldson's support of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists was manifested by his membership of the Council for many years, and he showed his interest in the academic aspects of his specialty by acting as an Examiner for the College and for the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and London, and for the Central Midwives Board. But his chief and abiding objective in teaching was to educate the laity in the problems of cancer, with special reference to the importance of early diagnosis. He argued that the more the public knew about cancer the less would be the fear of it, and patients would therefore be more willing to consult their doctors in good time, so that the results of treatment could be improved. He was indefatigable in travelling round the country addressing Women's Institutes and similar bodies, and when he retired to Oxford he became Honorary Director of the Cancer Information Association. Donaldson was twice married. By his first wife he had two sons, the elder being Sir John Donaldson, President of the National Industrial Relations Court. His second wife died in 1970, and when he died himself aged 88 on 16 March 1973 his end came as a welcome relief after a terminal period of illness and loneliness.