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}}</ref> His mother was Mary Mitchell. He was the great-nephew of historian James Gairdner. Gairdner was named for his father's late friend, Douglas M. Thornton who had died three years before Gairdner's birth. Gairdner had four siblings. His very early life was spent in Egypt where his father was a missionary.<ref name="read">{{REFjournal

|last=Gairdner

|author-link=Douglas Gairdner

|title=History opened my eyes

He read chemistry at the University of Oxford but switched to medicine, did clinical training at Middlesex Hospital and was awarded his Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery Degree in 1936.<ref name="obit"/> He did his residency (house physician) in paediatrics at The Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street in Bloomsbury, London in 1937-8.<ref name="obit"/><ref name="spence"/> Gairdner described his experience there in a memoir written a half-century later. He wrote, "I recall the sheer enjoyment of working there, but also the periods of overwhelming exhaustion."<ref>{{REFjournal

|last=Gairdner

|author-link=Douglas Gairdner

|title=Great St. Ormond Street 50 years ago

}}</ref> Gairdner was pleased with the success of the article.<ref name="obit" /> Gairdner also opposed unnecessary tonsillectomy, drawing attention to the risks of the operation at the time (1951)<ref>{{REFjournal

|last=Gairdner

|author-link=Douglas Gairdner

|title=Tonsillectomy

}}</ref> and suggested more conservative ways of treating repeated respiratory infections.<ref>{{REFjournal

|last=Gairdner

|author-link=Douglas Gairdner

|title=Tonsillectomy

Gairdner's research interests included Schōnlein-Henoch purpura,<ref>{{REFjournal

|last=Gairdner

|author-link=Douglas Gairdner

|title=The Schönlein-Henoch syndrome (anaphylactoid purpura)

}}</ref> nephrotic syndrome, [[Circumcision|circumcision]], and the formation of red blood cells in infancy.<ref>{{REFjournal

|last=Gairdner

|author-link=Douglas Gairdner

|etal=yes

{{REF}}

[[Category:Person]]