Donabedian received his early education at the Friends' (Quaker) school there and subsequently followed his father in studying medicine at the American University of Beirut.
An opportunity arose to study epidemiology and health services administration at Harvard, where he received his MPH degree (magna cum laude) in 1955.
[1] Donabedian collated the growing literature of health services research as it appeared through the 1950s and early 1960s and presented his findings in a lengthy paper in 1966 with the title "Evaluating the Quality of Medical Care".
[citation needed] Much of his subsequent work was a detailed exposition of the concepts and methods required to examine these fundamental aspects of health care.
The summation of his efforts is found in his trilogy, Explorations in quality assessment and monitoring (1980–1985), a massive work of personal scholarship and analytical thought brought to bear on every aspect of health care provision.
In the preface to his final large book, The Methods and Findings of Quality Assessment and Monitoring (1985), he regrets that "for all these years, my wife and children suffered the inevitable deprivations caused by my constant labors... Home is the aged wanderer they scarcely know, sitting by the domestic hearth, dozing into sleep."