Madge L. Crouch (1919–2004)

Madge L. Crouch was born in North Carolina and grew up in the New York Metropolitan area. She graduated from Methodist University’s nursing school in Brooklyn and completed a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Columbia University. She later received a master’s degree in personnel and business administration from George Washington University in 1961.

Crouch taught at Methodist Hospital for two years as a nurse before she joined the Naval Reserve Nurse Corps in 1944., where she served on the USS Benevolence hospital ship at the end of WWII. She retired from the Reserves as a captain in 1979. She worked for the American Red Cross as the head of the blood program's nursing department in Washington, D.C. from 1948 to 1965.

She came to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1965 and spent most of her 24 years there monitoring blood collection centers. In 1972 when the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Division of Biologics Standards (DBS) moved administratively to the FDA, Crouch joined others like Dr. Lewellys F. Barker, in the Division of Blood and Blood Products in Building 29 on the NIH campus. She published an article with Barker in 1975 on the storage, dating, and shelf life of red blood cell products. Towards the end of her career, she worked with her husband, Sam T. Gibson, in the Division of Biologics Evaluation.

Black and white professional photograph of Madge Crouch wearing a light colored suit jacket on a light background

Madge Crouch in 1956 American Red Cross
She retired in 1989 as the deputy director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research’s Office of Compliance and Biologics Quality.

Crouch worked in Building 29, Room 129 in the 1980s in her administrative roles, and previously worked on the 3rd floor when she was in the Division of Blood and Blood Products.

Publications: 

Professional photograph of Madge Crouch wearing a light shirt with a dark background

Madge Crouch in 1960 American Red Cross

Professional Photo of Madge Crouch wearing a dark jacket on a dark background

Madge Crouch in 1948 American Red Cross