Dugald Baird

Dugald Baird (born November 16, 1899 in Beith , † November 7, 1986 in Edinburgh ) was a Scottish doctor for gynecology , obstetrics and reproductive medicine and Regius professor at the University of Aberdeen .

Life

Dugald Baird was born in Beith, the eldest of three boys and a daughter to his mother May and father David Baird, director of the science department at Greenock Academy. After graduating from the Academy, Greenock Baird wanted immediately for military service in World War Report. However, he was turned away because of his age and instead studied at the University of Glasgow , where he worked with MB and Ch.B. completed. He continued his education at the University of Strasbourg . In 1934 he received his PhD with honors in Glasgow and was awarded the coveted Bellahouston Gold Medal for the best PhD student of the year. In 1935 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists .

His first employment was at the Glasgow Royal Maternity and Women's Hospital, the Glasgow Royal Infirmary and the Glasgow Royal Cancer Hospital. In addition, he assisted the Professor of the Muirhead Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Glasgow. He was already known as a fearless researcher in a conservative professional field when he was appointed Regius Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Aberdeen in 1937 . He held this professorship until his retirement in 1965.

Baird's approach to the treatment was strongly influenced by his experiences as a medical student in the slums of Glasgow coined. In Glasgow, the largest and most Catholic of the Scottish cities, Baird saw the consequences of highly restrictive access to contraception and abortions. Throughout his life he remembered the repulsive living conditions, the fatalism of prematurely aged mothers and the high mortality rate among children and mothers as well as the rachitic and apathetic children. The observations were to determine his later life.

The discrepancy between health and reproductive success in women with good medical care later caught his attention. His frustration with the city's conservative administration, which in one case led him to grab a priest by the neck and lead him down the stairs to the exit and throw him out of the hospital, were certain factors that made him leave Glasgow.

He saw his move to Aberdeen as a good opportunity to explore his theories about the influence of social factors on mothers and children. The climate in the city was more liberal, the political and medical infrastructure worse than in Glasgow, but sufficiently suitable for its purposes. And Baird brought with him the will to significantly improve the infrastructure. The population was stable and not very mobile , so that he could follow the life of the mothers with little effort. So Baird set out to research with reliable data.

The Second World War made the need for its work more visible and Baird focused on reliable data work. When the National Health Service was established, he gave up his practice and focused entirely on research . In the late 1940s, Baird was breaking new ground by including dietitians , sociologists , psychologists and statisticians in his department to evaluate his data. He convinced the Medical Research Council to support this interdisciplinary research . Baird's goal was by its own account, in addition to the women by Franklin D. Roosevelt formulated four freedoms ( Four Freedoms add) a fifth freedom, "freedom from excessive fertility". Baird was supported by his wife May Tennent, an equally courageous and assertive doctor who had also experienced the misery of Glasgow.

In collaboration with local authorities, the two give all women in Aberdeen access to family planning. He also offered abortions based on social indications. This development in Aberdeen should have a profound impact on the UK legislative process. Taking advantage of Scottish liberal law, Baird anticipated many of the developments codified by the United Kingdom's 1967 Abortion Act .

He also encouraged women who no longer wanted to have children to be sterilized and, in collaboration with the Simon Population Trust, convinced surgeons in Aberdeen to perform more vasectomies . At the same time, Aberdeen, under his leadership, achieved the best scores in the UK and one of the highest in Europe in childcare.

Baird's long-term approach led to what is believed to be the first study of the effects of pregnancy and childbirth conditions on the mental condition of children. In his opinion, uterine cancer deaths were unnecessary and he was the first to conduct mass screenings in Britain, setting a model for the nation. Baird served in many non-profit organizations, was a consultant for the World Health Organization and gained international recognition not only through these activities. Many of the procedures and processes introduced by Baird were revolutionary in his time. Today they are taken for granted in Great Britain.

In 1965, Baird retired. His most important work, the Combined Textbook , was published in nineteen editions from 1950 to 1969. The Aberdeen Maternity and Neonatal Databank (AMND) he founded is still used today for research and the maintenance of women’s health.

Baird played rugby in his spare time and golf in his later years .

Honors

Baird was showered with honors, he was honored with honorary doctorates from the universities of Glasgow , Manchester , Wales , Aberdeen , Newcastle and Stirling . In 1959 Baird was ennobled and in 1966 he and his wife May (née Tennent) were awarded the " Freedom of the City of Aberdeen ", a kind of honorary citizenship . One of the city's squares is called Dugald Baird Square , the University of Aberdeen offers the Dugald Baird Conference Room for 60 people and runs the Dugald Baird Center for research on the health of women. A plaque at 38 Albyn Place in Aberdeen commemorates Dugal Baird. In memory of Baird and his wife, a planned hospital in Aberdeen will be named Baird Family Hospital .

bibliography

Books

• 1936: The Upper Urinary tract in Pregnancy and Puerperium with special reference to Pyelitis of Pregnancy
• 1950: Combined Textbook of Obstetrics and Gynecology for Students and Practitioners
• 1964: The physiology of human pregnancy
• 1966: Abortion in Britain
• 1968: Living with the pill and other methods of contraception

items

• 1952: Preventive medicine in obstetrics; New England Journal of Medicine, 1952, vol. 246, no.15;

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad} BT: Sir Dugald Baird. (PDF) MD, FRCOG, DPH. In: British Medical Journal, Vol. 293. November 29, 1986. British Medical Association , November 29, 1986, p. 1446 , accessed October 22, 2019 (English, obituary for Dugald Baird).  
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Christabelle Sethna and Gayle Davis: Abortion across Borders: Transnational Travel and Access to Abortion Services . JHU Press, 2019, ISBN 978-1-4214-2729-4 , chap. 4 , p. 103 (English, presentation of the particularity of the Aberdeen region under the influence of Dugald Baird.): “In only one area of ​​Scotland do doctors appear to have taken full advantage of the potential flexibility of Scottish abortion law in the decades before the 1967 act, and that was in Aberdeenshire in northeast Scotland, under the guidance of the chief gynecologist Dugald Baird. "
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Sir Dugald Baird (1899-1986). In: AMCS website. Aberdeen Medico-Chirurgical Society, accessed October 23, 2019 .  
4. ↑ Malcolm Macnaughton: Baird, Sir Dugald. (1899-1986). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biographies. Retrieved October 24, 2019 .  
5. ↑ ^{a b c d} James Howie, MD, FRCP: Portraits from Memory. (PDF) Sir Dugal Baird (1899-1986). In: British Medical Journal. British Medical Association, August 8, 1987, p. 378 , accessed October 24, 2019 .  
6. ↑ ^{a b c d} unknown: History of Academic Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Sir Dugald Baird. In: University of Aberdeen website. University of Aberdeen, accessed October 24, 2019 .