An Iowa native and educated at Buena Vista College (now Buena Vista University) from 1919 to 1920, the University of Iowa (1920-1923), and the University of Iowa Medical School (1926), Dr. D.H. O’Donoghue first came to Oklahoma City in 1927, where he became the first resident in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery and Fractures at the University of Oklahoma Hospitals. He remained there in the teaching program as part-time chief until 1932 and was a consultant to the Departments of Athletics at the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma City University. Many of sports most legendary figures have been his patients and include Gil Duggan, Mickey Mantle, Sonny Jurgenson, Bobby Douglas, Willis Reed, and even a world fencing champion from France. O’Donoghue began traveling with the OU football team in 1965. That same year, he became the founding president of the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine and directed the first national post-graduate course in Sports Medicine held in Oklahoma City.