Watson Clinic

Dr. Christopher Baird has been a hospitalist in the Tampa Bay Area since 2004 and a dedicated Nocturnist since 2011. He completed his BA/MD seven year program at Rutgers University in 1994 and his residency in internal medicine at Orlando Regional Medical Center in 1997. After years of medical practice and clinical research, Dr. Baird dedicated himself to hospital medicine; the practice of caring for hospitalized patients. He found the demands of high acuity care challenging; caring for medical conditions as diverse as aortic dissections, malaria and injuries of Haitian Earthquake victims.

Dr. Baird credits his residency at Orlando Regional Medical Center for his interest in hospital medicine. He remembers a wide breadth of cases on his service such as king cobra bites, siberian tiger mauling, hepatitis E, thymoma induced myasthenia gravis and seizures from encephalitis during his residency. “The Residency Directors of Education were committed to our learning by doing as well as studying for the Boards. We had been trained as hospitalists before the word was in the dictionary.” recalls Dr. Baird.

During his years as a hospitalist, Dr. Baird taught clinical medicine to medical students, medical residents, physician assistants and APRNs from schools in the state of Florida. He was also active on Ethics, Investigational Review, Stroke, STEMI and Adult Congenital Heart Disease Boards at St. Joseph’s Hospital where he practiced for 12 years. Currently, he is a nocturnist for the Watson Clinic Hospitalist Group at Lakeland Regional Hospital. Dr. Baird started at Watson Clinic in 2020 at the beginning of the Covid-19 Global Pandemic which has taxed medical services worldwide. “The Pandemic has reminded all of us how so many rely on so few in the realms of Public Safety, Healthcare and Defense. Commitment to continuing education and maintanence of skills are the difference between life and death for those in our charge.” asserts Dr. Baird.

Dr. Baird believes in developing interests beyond medicine as necessary for a happy life. A Master Level diver, avid fisherman, art collector and award-winning ballroom dancer, he credits these interests for starting lifelong friendships, unique experiences and getting married; his dance partner, Leticia, became his wife in 2008.

1730 Lakeland Hills Blvd., Lakeland, FL 33805 | P: 863-680-7000 | www.watsonclinic.com