Joel Wilson Baker was chair of the department of surgery at Virginia Mason Hospital and Medical Center, Seattle, USA. He was born in Shenandoah, Virginia, in 1905 and studied medicine at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, qualifying MD in 1928. He moved to Seattle in 1930 to join a group of fellow Virginians at the Mason Clinic, which had been founded James Tate Mason (the clinic was subsequently named the Virginia Mason Hospital and Medical Center). There he served an internship, and subsequently a preceptorship, with Mason, during which time he travelled to observe great surgeons such as William Mayo and Frank Lahey. He was subsequently appointed to the staff at Virginia Mason. In 1945 the University of Washington began developing a medical school, despite not having a designated teaching hospital. Baker strongly supported this development and invited physicians from the university to treat their patients at the Virginia Mason Hospital. He stayed at the hospital for 42 years, holding the position as chief of surgery for 34 years and serving as chair of the clinic between 1945 and 1964, finally retiring at the age of 65. He was generally acknowledged to be a fine clinician, an excellent surgical technician and a wise and effective administrator. During his time at Virginia Mason he made a number of surgical innovations, including a novel technique for non-surgical drainage of obstructed intestine. He published 136 papers, several chapters in textbooks, and made a number of instructional films under the sponsorship of the American College of Surgeons. He was particularly interested in the postgraduate training of surgeons and developed a general surgical residency programme at the Virginia Mason in the early 1940s. The programme is now the oldest such training programme in the northwest. In 1951 he founded, and was president of, the Washington chapter of the American College of Surgeons. He went on to serve the American College of Surgeons at a national level: from 1955 to 1965 he was on the board of regents and served as president from 1969 to 1970. From 1955 to 1960 he was elected as a director of the American Board of Surgery, and from 1971 to 1972 he was president of the Pacific Coast Surgical Association. He was awarded an honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1971 and of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1974. Joel Wilson Baker died on 4 July 1999, aged 94.