Doris Ann Slack

Doris Ann Slack was a master clinician in physical and occupational therapy and an educator who profoundly inspired her patients and students. She was also an advocate for those in need. Widely known as an avid sports fan, she was also an aficionado of hats.

Born in Bloomington, Illinois on February 15, 1920, she moved as a young child to Grand Rapids, Michigan where she grew up with three brothers and a sister. After graduation from Creston High School in 1938, she attended Grand Rapids Junior College before transferring to the University of Michigan. After graduating in 1943 with a degree in Physical Education, she enlisted in the Women's Army Corps serving in World War II where she received training in physical therapy.

After the war she began a career as a physical therapist in Bismarck, North Dakota traveling the state. She spent several years in the 1950’s working with polio victims in Boston before moving to Chicago treating cerebral palsy patients. After receiving her degree in Occupational Therapy from Western Michigan University, she moved back to Grand Rapids and directed the occupational therapy program at the Home for Veterans. Doris returned to the University of Michigan, earning her Master of Public Health degree in Health Behavior and Health Management in 1965.

Over the next two decades, Doris held appointments as an Assistant Professor where she communicated her clinical knowledge and experience through her teaching and applications to daily living. Her most significant academic contribution was as lead author in the chapter on “Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation” writing on the splinting of the wrist for the textbook Rheumatoid Arthritis: Etiology•Diagnosis•Management published in 1985.

Doris retired in Wilmington, North Carolina. In February 2020, she celebrated her 100th birthday with family and friends, who loved her spirit, wit, wonderful sense of humor and no nonsense truth telling. Characteristically, she did “not go gentle into that good night,” but ultimately died peacefully in her sleep June 15. She will be buried in Grand Rapids, Michigan in the family plot.

She was very proud of the legacy she created through scholarships at the University of Michigan, one with her sister Gretchen Appelt at the Grand Rapids Community Foundation and the other to support graduate students in the School of Public Health. Her dedication to her profession is personified by the establishment of the Doris Ann Slack Fund at the American Hand Therapy Foundation where donations may be made to her fund.

Doris Ann Slack is survived by her niece Mary and nephews Joseph and Leslie Appelt, David, Robert, and Daniel Slack and several grandnieces and grandnephews.

Funeral arrangements are currently pending for Doris.