Rollin A. Daniel was born in Georgia in 1908. His father was a general practitioner and moved the family to Watertown, Tennessee, in 1912. Rollin Daniel graduated from Vanderbilt in 1930 and Vanderbilt Medical School in 1933. His surgical internship and rsidency was also at Vanderbilt with one year at Barnes Hospital. He served as chief resident at Vanderbilt in 1937-38.

In 1938 Dr. Daniel joined the Eve-Burch Clinic in Nashville. When Alfred Blalock left Vanderbilt to become Chair at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Brooks offered Rollin Daniel the full-time position of thoracic-surgeon. He held this position until 1954 when he left the academic world and entered private practice, though Dr. Daniel remained the program director for the Thoracic Surgical Service until 1970.

In 1970, Dr. Daniel was invited to become the first full-time Chief of Surgery at St. Thomas Hospital, and he held that position until his retirement in 1977. Dr. Daniel was a founding member of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery and worked diligently for this organization. He died in 1978.