Charles R. Baxter

Who was Charles R. Baxter?

Charles Rufus Baxter was an American medical doctor. Baxter was one of the doctors who unsuccessfully tried to save John F. Kennedy after he was shot in Dallas, Texas in 1963.

Born in Paris, Texas, Baxter graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1950. He then attended the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas where he received his medical degree in 1954.

Baxter was the emergency room director at Parkland Memorial Hospital when Kennedy was shot, and famously said of the event in 1988:

He also operated on Texas Gov. John Connally, who had been wounded in the attack.

Baxter made advances in the treatment of burn victims, and founded a skin-graft bank in Parkland.

He also founded the burn unit at Parkland hospital in Dallas.

He died March 10, 2005, of pneumonia, aged 75.