Biography: Dr. Joanne Froio Domson

Joanne Froio Domson is an allergist and pediatrician who has combined a busy and challenging career in medicine with a hectic family life, raising five children and enjoying balancing all her responsibilities.

Joanne Froio was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her father and uncle were both doctors, and she recalls wanting to be a physician since she was 5-years-old. She attended Immaculata College for three years and enrolled at the Woman's Medical College on early acceptance. During her sophomore year, she married Paul Domson, a medical student at Hanneman College.

Her first child was born while she was in her third year of medical school, and just over ten months later, during her senior year, her second was born. She graduated in 1969. When Woman's Medical College began to accept male students, its name became the Medical College of Pennsylvania.

Domson did her internship in pediatrics at Fitzgerald Mercy Hospital in Darby, Pennsylvania, and her pediatric residency at the Medical College of Pennsylvania (1970-1972). Her third child was born between the first and second years of her residency.

With war in Vietnam at that time, her husband, also a pediatrician, was drafted for military service and assigned to Andrews Air Force Base. The family relocated to Maryland in August 1972, where the Domsons both worked in a pediatrics group. She became pregnant with her fourth child, and decided to sub-specialize in allergy and immunology, and was accepted into the fellowship program at Children's Hospital National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. After her fifth child was born, she began her fellowship, finishing in 1981.

She opened an allergy and pediatrics practice in Clinton, Maryland in 1979, but limited her practice to allergy and asthma in 1987, with offices in Waldorf, Maryland, and Alexandria, Virginia.

Joanne Domson has been a member of the Greater Washington Allergy Society since 1981, has served on its board for four years, and was president in 1986. She lives with her husband in Alexandria, Virginia, and all five children are now grown. Three are physicians, one is an accountant, and one works in finance. Joanne Domson enjoys golf and does heirloom sewing for her four grandchildren.