Former Mobile surgeon Dr. Donald E. Bayles Sr. dies
Mobile Register, December 28, 2004 Section: B Page: 5
Author: Lanier

Dr. Donald E. Bayles Sr., a former Mobile surgeon and former assistant professor of surgery at the University of South Alabama School of Medicine, died Saturday at his home. He was 66.

Bayles, a native of Anderson, Ala., had been a resident of Lauderdale County for the past 25 years.

Bayles interned at the former Mobile General Hospital in Mobile from July 1963 until June 1964, and in July of that year began his general surgery residency at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, which ran through June 1967. He later served as a plastic surgery resident with the Jacksonville Hospital Education Program with the University of Florida in Jacksonville from January 1971 to December 1972.

He practiced plastic surgery in Mobile from 1972 to 1977, during which time he also served as an assistant professor at USA School of Medicine.

Upon moving to Lauderdale County, he practiced in Florence from 1977 to 1990.

A 1956 graduate of Coffee High School in Florence, Bayles received his bachelor of science degree in pre-medicine from the University of Alabama in 1960 and his medical degree from the Medical College of Alabama in 1963.

From 1990 to 2003, he earned certificates in emergency medicine from the states of Alabama and Tennessee.

Bayles served in the Air Force Reserve at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi from 1994 until retiring in 2002, having attained the rank of colonel. During that time, he served as a flight surgeon with the Hurricane Hunters. He graduated from the Air War College at Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama in March 1998.

He was a life member of the Alabama State Board of Crippled Children's Services and a medical advisory board member representing the state Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons.

Survivors include three daughters, Anna Kirsten Bayles and Angieline Holt Bayles, both of Florence, and Anne McCracken Jackson of Nashville, Tenn.; two sons, Donald E. Bayles Jr. of Atlanta and Travis Clark Bayles of Florence; one sister, Nan Bayles Carter of Albany, Ga.; and one grandchild.

The service with full military honors is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. today at Elkins Funeral Home in Florence. Burial will take place in Florence City Cemetery.

Memorials may be made to the American Cancer Society.

This article reproduced with special permission from the Mobile Register.