Image Not Available

Sir Dugald Baird

Greenock, Scotland, 1899 - 1986

Keywords

About MeBetween 1937 and 1965 Dugald Baird transformed Aberdeen’s obstetric service, elevating it to become a national centre of research and practice which not only achieved the best birth outcomes in the UK but was also amongst the best in Europe. As a student and young doctor Dugald had witnessed the effects of poverty on mothers and babies. This sparked his lifelong interest in the social and economic factors behind health and disease.

He arrived at the University of Aberdeen in 1937 to take up a professorship and over the following decades made major contributions to improving the health of pregnant women. Much of his thinking forms modern-day best practice. As a staunch supporter of birth control, he called a woman’s right to contraception the ‘fifth freedom’. In 1960, Dugald began the first population-based cervical screening programme which resulted in a notable decrease in incidences of cervical cancer in the region. He was also responsible for setting up the Aberdeen Maternity and Neonatal Databank, which continues to hold all data for Aberdeen City births.

Wikipedia Biography

Loading ...