Dr. M.A. Burns was born in Iowa but grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. Dr. Burns graduated from the University of Minnesota Medical School in 1896 and opened a general practice in Rosemount, Minnesota.

After a brief time in Rosemount, he returned to Minneapolis for an internship at the City Hospital at a time when internships were not a requirement. During his internship he met a young lady from Canada who was training to be nurse, Wilhelmina McKenzie. They were married in 1904 and had three children: Floyd, George, and Mary. Floyd also acquired a medical degree and practiced medicine with his father at one point.

In 1898 Dr. Burns opened a practice in Milan, Minnesota where he practiced for 71 years until he retired in 1969. Most of the Milan population were of Norwegian descent and spoke Norwegian, which Dr. Burns also learned in order to best treat his patients. He also served as the mayor of Milan several times over the course of his life.

The University of Minnesota Medical Bulletin (vol. 38, no. 8, p. 4) had the following quote from the Camp Release District Medical Society who called Dr. Burns the “Outstanding General Practitioner of Minnesota”:

"Above and beyond his community activities, that one characteristic which makes Dr. Burns the outstanding GP in our district, and, in our minds, the entire state, is his strict sense of professional duty. He is one of the older generation of physicians, who comes at once when his patients call him, night or day, blizzard or rain, 'come hell or high water'."

Dr. M.A. Burns passed away in 1976. His family retained his medical book library, and in 2019 his grandchildren, who had settled in Georgia over the years, graciously donated his collection of medical books to the Robert B. Greenblatt, MD Library.