Donald McIntosh received his medical education at the University of Edinburgh, qualifying MB ChB there in 1936, and was awarded the University's MD in 1942. He gained the Edinburgh Fellowship in 1939 and the English Fellowship in 1947. During the second world war he served in the RAMC with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Thereafter he was clinical tutor and later consultant surgeon at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh and surgeon to the Chalmers Hospital in that city. He retired in 1988 and died on 28 June 1996.