John Charles Baldwin (September 23, 1948 – April 3, 2016) was an American

cardiac surgeon Cardiac surgery, or cardiovascular surgery, is surgery on the heart or great vessels performed by cardiac surgeons. It is often used to treat complications of ischemic heart disease (for example, with coronary artery bypass grafting); to ...

and academic administrator. He served as the surgery department chairman at

Baylor College of Medicine Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) is a medical school and research center in Houston, Texas, within the Texas Medical Center, the world's largest medical center. BCM is composed of four academic components: the School of Medicine, the Graduate Sc ...

, as dean of

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

Geisel School of Medicine The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth is the graduate medical school of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. The fourth oldest medical school in the United States, it was founded in 1797 by New England physician Nathan Smith. It is o ...

, as president and CEO of the Harvard Immune Disease Institute, and as president of the

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) is a public medical school based in Lubbock, Texas, with additional campuses in Abilene, Amarillo, Dallas, El Paso and the Permian Basin. TTUHSC serves more than 100 counties in the we ...

Biography

Baldwin earned an undergraduate degree in

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, was a

Rhodes Scholar The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

at Magdalen College, Oxford, and attended

Stanford University School of Medicine Stanford University School of Medicine is the medical school of Stanford University and is located in Stanford, California. It traces its roots to the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific, founded in San Francisco in 1858. This ...

. He completed a

cardiothoracic surgery Cardiothoracic surgery is the field of medicine involved in surgical treatment of organs inside the thoracic cavity — generally treatment of conditions of the heart ( heart disease), lungs ( lung disease), and other pleural or mediastina ...

residency at Stanford in 1983. At Stanford, he trained under cardiac surgeon

Norman Shumway Norman Edward Shumway (February 9, 1923 – February 10, 2006) was a pioneer of heart surgery at Stanford University. He was the 67th president of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery and the first to perform an adult human to hum ...

. After he completed his training, Baldwin taught and practiced cardiothoracic surgery as a faculty member at Stanford, becoming the director of the heart-lung transplantation program there. In 1988, he accepted the same position at the

Yale School of Medicine The Yale School of Medicine is the graduate medical school at Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813. The primary t ...

. Baldwin was named the Debakey Professor and the surgery department chairman at Baylor College of Medicine in 1994. While at Baylor, he performed the first successful cardiac "auto-transplant" procedure, in which he removed a patient's heart, took a tumor out of the heart, and reimplanted the heart into the patient. He conducted research on

gene therapy Gene therapy is a medical field which focuses on the genetic modification of cells to produce a therapeutic effect or the treatment of disease by repairing or reconstructing defective genetic material. The first attempt at modifying human D ...

and

growth factor A growth factor is a naturally occurring substance capable of stimulating cell proliferation, wound healing, and occasionally cellular differentiation. Usually it is a secreted protein or a steroid hormone. Growth factors are important for r ...

utilization in cardiac care, and he worked to enhance the care provided in academic

managed care The term managed care or managed healthcare is used in the United States to describe a group of activities intended to reduce the cost of providing health care and providing American health insurance while improving the quality of that care ("man ...

systems. He became the medical school dean and associate provost for health affairs at Dartmouth College in 1998. Baldwin was president and CEO of the Harvard Immune Disease Institute from 2005 to 2007. He became president of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) in 2007. During Baldwin's presidency, the

Paul L. Foster School of Medicine The Paul L. Foster School of Medicine is a medical school in El Paso, Texas at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso. The Paul L. Foster School of Medicine is the 9th medical school in the state of Texas, and the medical school i ...

at the TTUHSC El Paso campus received its accreditation as a four-year medical school. He resigned as president in 2009, but he remained at Texas Tech as an advisor to the chancellor and as a tenured professor. In 1995, Baldwin was elected to a six-year term on the Harvard University Board of Overseers. He also served on the board of directors of the Robert F. Kennedy Foundation and he received a 2011 presidential appointment to the U.S. Defense Health Board. Baldwin died on April 3, 2016, following a swimming accident in

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baldwin, John C. 1948 births 2016 deaths American cardiac surgeons People from Fort Worth, Texas Stanford University School of Medicine faculty Baylor College of Medicine faculty Harvard Medical School faculty Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center faculty Geisel School of Medicine faculty Yale School of Medicine faculty Harvard College alumni Stanford University School of Medicine alumni American Rhodes Scholars Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford