Charles R. Baxter was an American medical doctor. Baxter was one of the doctors

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

 who unsuccessfully tried to save John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

 after he was shot in Dallas, Texas

Dallas, Texas

Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...

 in 1963.

Born in Paris, Texas

Paris, Texas

Paris, Texas is a city located northeast of the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex in Lamar County, Texas, in the United States. It is situated in Northeast Texas at the western edge of the Piney Woods. Physiographically, these regions are part of the West Gulf Coastal Plain. In 1900, 9,358 people lived...

, Baxter graduated from the University of Texas at Austin

University of Texas at Austin

The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...

 in 1950. He then attended the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center is one of the biomedical research institutions of the University of Texas System, incorporating three degree-granting institutions, four affiliated hospitals, including Parkland Memorial, the teaching hospital, and biomedical research...

 at Dallas where he received his medical degree in 1954.

Baxter was the emergency room director at Parkland Memorial Hospital

Parkland Memorial Hospital

Parkland Memorial Hospital is a hospital located at 5201 Harry Hines Boulevard, just west of Oak Lawn in Dallas, Texas . It is the main hospital of the Dallas County Hospital District and serves as Dallas County's public hospital.- History :The original hospital opened in 1894 in a wooden...

 when Kennedy was shot, and famously said of the event in 1988:

"As soon as we realized we had nothing medical to do, we all backed off from the man with a reverence that one has for one's president, and we did not continue to be doctors from that point on. We became citizens again, and there were probably more tears shed in that room than in the surrounding hundred miles."

He also operated on Texas Gov. John Connally

John Connally

John Bowden Connally, Jr. , was an influential American politician, serving as the 39th governor of Texas, Secretary of the Navy under President John F. Kennedy, and as Secretary of the Treasury under President Richard M. Nixon. While he was Governor in 1963, Connally was a passenger in the car in...

, 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

Pneumonia

Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...

, aged 75.