Jeffrey Baker
Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Director, History of Medicine Program, Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, and History of Medicine
B.S. Duke University
M.D. Duke University School of Medicine
Pediatrics,
University of Colorado
Ambulatory Pediatrics, Duke University Medical
Center
Ph.D. Duke University
Dr. Baker's is an academic pediatrician and historian whose scholarship has focused on medical technology, ethics and child health. He has lectured and written extensively on the evolution of premature infant technology. Much of this work is synthesized in his comparative history of neonatal medicine in France and the United States, The Machine in the Nursery: Incubator Technology and the Origins of Newborn Intensive Care (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). His more recent work has examined childhood vaccine controversies in the United States and Great Britain. He has also written and edited a history of 20th century American pediatrics commemorating the 75th year anniversary of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Dr. Baker directs the Medical History Program of the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, and History of Medicine, in which capacity he teaches at all levels of undergraduate and graduate medical education. He has taught undergraduate courses addressing the historical aspects of medical ethics, technology, reproductive medicine, and genetics; currently Dr. Baker directs the Prospective Health Care series within Duke’s Focus program for first-year undergraduate students. Previous responsibilities at Duke have included serving as Interim Director of the Trent Center and Director of the AB Duke Scholarship Program (both between 2005-6), and Medical Director of the Duke Health Center at Southpoint (1999-2003). Dr. Baker practices general pediatrics and serves on the advisory committee for the Pediatric History Center for the American Academy of Pediatrics.
