Dr. "CBJ" is speaking at event

PALMER -- The 2002 National Family Physician of the Year, Dr. Cathy Baldwin-Johnson, will be the keynote speaker at the Valley Hospital Baby Fair and will share her expertise on well baby care and soothing the irritable infant.

Her peers in the American Academy of Family Physicians, which represents more than 93,000 family physicians, family practice residents and medical students nationwide, selected her for the award.

This award is presented each year to a member of the AAFP who meets the criteria for outstanding service to patients and community, and devotion to family practice. Dr. Baldwin-Johnson was the first Alaska physician to receive this award from the AAFP, which has made the award annually since 1977.

Dr. Baldwin-Johnson was nominated for the AAFP Family Physician of the Year award by the Alaska Academy of Family Physicians, which recognized her as the Alaska Family Physician of the Year in 2000. In 1999, Dr. Baldwin-Johnson received the Alaska First Lady's Award for outstanding volunteerism.

The award is presented to a few select Alaskans who go above and beyond to volunteer their time to their community.

"Dr. CBJ" -- as her patients and staff call her -- has delivered quality and compassionate care to Mat-Su residents for more than 16 years.

She is on the medical staff for Valley Hospital in Palmer, and founded a practice in Wasilla, now affiliated with Providence Health Systems in Alaska. Highly respected by fellow physicians, she has also garnered admiration from numerous health care providers for her leadership in addressing the problems of child abuse within the Valley.

Dr. Baldwin-Johnson is one of the founders and the volunteer medical director for The Children's Place.

The Children's Place is a local children's advocacy center dedicated to the evaluation, treatment and prevention of child abuse and neglect.

Margaret Volz, program director for The Children's Place, said, "This additional tireless commitment to children is what I feel makes her extraordinary. She is a gifted family-practice physician who is loved by most all of her patients, but she has also added her quiet, firm voice to speak up for this vulnerable population of abused children and truly changed the way we care for these children in our Valley."

Now in its sixth year of operation, the Children's Place is one of only three centers in Alaska to use a child-focused approach, which ensures that young victims are not "revictimized" by the legal and medical processes designed to protect them. Instead of taking the child to the various agencies for multiple interviews, the agencies, police officers and other professionals come to the center to investigate the case and provide intervention services.

Baldwin-Johnson spends at least half a day per week, some evenings and many weekends at the center performing medical exams, reviewing cases and consulting on other cases within Alaska.

A life-long Alaskan, Dr. Baldwin-Johnson grew up fishing, hunting and trapping with her family -- and had decided by age three to become a doctor. She graduated from the University of Washington School of Medicine and the Swedish Hospital Medical Center Family Practice Residency program.

Dr. Baldwin-Johnson has served as the medical and lab director for PMHC as well as the volunteer medical director for the Valley Sexual Assault Response Team, which she helped to form.

She also has served in various leadership capacities at Valley Hospital, including as president of the medical staff, medical director of Hospice of Mat-Su, and chair of the Maternal Child Health Committee.