Dr. Alan Stiles, the Chairman of Pediatrics at UNC-Chapel Hill and a student of Dr. Mac's, encapsulates the influence Dr. Mac had in the statement:

"Dr. Mac was the first of the Ped Heme/Onc faculty here at UNC and although a very successful investigator, teacher and clinician, was best known for his 'heart.' Beloved by his patients, both trainees and faculty learned about the human side of medicine from him."

Although I am only the last of the hematologists on whom he left a direct imprint, I can try to get across to an extent his importance to hemophilia research. Keith Hoots was his fellow 1978-1980 and can be more effusive; Harold Roberts, his co-investigator throughout Dr. McMillan's career can be more eloquent; and Gilbert White, who saw adult hemophilia patients while Dr. McMillan was the Director of our HTC and saw the children, can attest to his unique character.

Dr McMillan was a Pediatric Hematology/Oncology fellow with Dr. Louis Diamond at Boston Children's Hospital during the decades when that program turned out most of the prominent individuals in our field. During this time, with Drs. Diamond and Douglas Surgenor, he tested and published (in 1961) the effects of the first commercially available plasma fraction for the treatment of hemophilia, "fraction one" (enriched with fibrinogen and factor VIII). He was finally convinced to join the faculty at UNC Chapel Hill in 1963 as the first full time Pediatric Hematologist-Oncologist for the state's medical school. He also set up the first research program in hemostasis on the Pediatric side, complemented perfectly by the extensive program initiated by Dr. Kenneth Brinkhous. Together, they performed research on hemophilia in the neonate, studying the blood clotting in newborn hemophilia dogs at the Chapel Hill Blood laboratory. Dr. Mac generally perfectly melded laboratory observations with clinical observations. Dr. McMillan also published (with Dr. Roberts) the first report of continuous infusion of clotting factor concentrates.

In the laboratory, he was also involved in early studies of the inhibitors to factor VIII and the quantitation of the effects of factor VIII inhibitors upon clotting function. On the clinical side, he organized a cooperative study (with ten institutions across the nation) that described the natural history of the development of inhibitors in hemophilia A, documenting incidence and characteristics of inhibitors in the early and later years of life. Naturally, Dr. McMillan was at the table with the group in Bethesda that agreed upon "A more uniform measurement of factor VIII inhibitors," the assay now referred to as the Bethesda Assay. When recombinant factor VIII products became available and screening for inhibitor development became more rigorous, Dr. McMillan (along with Dr. Jeanne Lusher and others) reported the frequent occurrence of low titer, transient factor VIII inhibitors as a common and less clinically devastating a complication than the previously recognized high titer inhibitors. Also with Dr. Roberts, he published the first report of a family with an inherited combined deficiency of clotting factors, the combined deficiency of vitamin K dependent clotting factors II, VII, IX, and X. With the orthopedist Dr. Walter Greene, Dr. McMillan also published on the care of musculoskeletal complications of hemophilia. I am certainly omitting many achievements.

On the occasion of the National Hemophilia Foundation's 50th anniversary celebration in 1998, Dr. Campbell W. McMillan received the organization's Outstanding Achievement Career Award. "Although Dr. McMillan made lasting contributions to the field of hemophilia care, he is best known for the extraordinary care he gave to his patients," the award citation said.

Although remarkably outgoing and giving, Dr. McMillan was inordinately humble. His Department Chairman of 20 years summarized Dr. McMillan's many contributions, concluding his own remarks with the statement: "For twenty-eight years he served as the "conscience" of the Department. We could always be certain that he, in his humble way, would let us know if we were showing any tendency to make any move that was not in the best interests of children." Rather than give in to doubt or a selfish notion, Dr. Mac's instinct was always to be mindful of those around him, as reflected in his statement in the book The Gift of Experience: Conversations About Hemophilia:

"What offset the problems was the never-ending demonstration by my patients of their ability to respond to difficulties. This was a continuing blessing of the highest order and the greatest gift of all, not from me, but to me, from my patients."

— Paul Monahan, MD
October, 2008