Charles Rufus Baxter

Charles Rufus Baxter, MD (November 4, 1929 – March 10, 2005) was an American doctor. Baxter was one of the surgeons who unsuccessfully tried to save U.S. President John F. Kennedy after his 1963 assassination in Dallas, Texas. He is also remembered for the Parkland formula, which gives an indication of how much fluid should be given to a patient with burn injuries.

Biography 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 in Dallas where he received his medical degree in 1954.

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

He also operated on Texas Governor John Connally, who had been wounded in the attack. and a skin-graft bank at Parkland.

He died at Zale-Lipshy Hospital in Dallas, Texas, on March 10, 2005, of pneumonia, aged 75.