Bryan's publications include Osler: Inspirations from a Great Physician (1997), Infectious Diseases in Primary Care (2002), and Asylum Doctor; James Woods Babcock and the Red Plague of Pellagra (2014), the result of 15 years of research.

[2] His father, Leon S. Bryan, was a physician who graduated from the Medical College of South Carolina during the Depression.

[5] At Harvard, he spent some time under sociologist David Riesman and wrote on slavery on a South Carolina rice plantation.

[6] In 1963, he transferred to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, taking a copy of William Osler's inspirational addresses, Aequanimitas, given to him by his father.

[5][7] In 1974, he returned to Columbia after completing training at both the Johns Hopkins and the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and then entered private practice in internal medicine and infectious diseases.

[19] The Association of Professors of Medicine created the Charles S. Bryan Dinner in recognition of his contributions to that organization.

[7] In 2017, the South Carolina chapter of the American College of Physicians created the Charles S. Bryan Lecture in the Humanities.

[22] Bryan is married to the former Donna Hennessee, who founded the Seeds of Hope Farmers Market Project in South Carolina.