2019 Outstanding Alumnus Award Winner
A native of Tennessee, Donald E. Barker, MD, FACS, holds the rank of Professor in the University of Tennessee College of Medicine Chattanooga Department of Surgery where he has been a teacher and mentor for medical students and residents for the past 28 years.
After graduating from Blountville High School in Blountville TN in 1967, he completed a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from King College in Bristol, TN in 1971 and a Medical Doctorate degree from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) in Memphis, TN, in 1975. He completed his general surgery internship and residency at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Chattanooga in 1980.
For the next three years, Dr. Barker served in Italy as a general surgeon in the US Army Reserve Medical Corps attaining the rank of Major. Upon return to the United States in 1983, he became the Assistant Surgery Residency Program Director at UTHSC’s Baptist Hospital in Nashville, TN. In 1984 he was awarded the General Motors Academic Trauma Research and Critical Care Fellowship at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He earned a Masters degree in Clinical Experimental Design/Statistical Analysis, at the University of Michigan Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies in 1984.
In July 1986 he joined the faculty of the University of Kentucky Medical Center Division of General Surgery in Lexington, Kentucky where he was actively involved in medical student and resident education and served as the Medical Director of the Level I Trauma Center and the air-medical Transport program. In July of 1991 he returned to Tennessee to join the faculty of the University of Tennessee College of Medicine Chattanooga Department of Surgery as the Medical Director of Erlanger Health System’s Level I Trauma Center and the Life Force air-medical program. He is a member of multiple surgical societies and has served on both national and regional committees. He is active in the fields of Acute Care Surgery, Trauma Surgery and Surgical Critical Care. He holds American Board of Surgery certifications in General Surgery and Surgical Critical Care. He is involved in intern, resident, medical student and pre-hospital care provider education and has produced pioneering research in the field of temporary abdominal wound closure.
Dr. Barker and his wife June Marie live in Signal Mountain, Tennessee. They have three children: Andrew B. Barker M.D., Matthew C. Barker M.D and Kelly Ann Barker.
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