A pediatrician, family physician, and psychiatrist, Dr. Baldwin was educated at Swarthmore College, the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, Yale Divinity School, Yale Medical School, and at the University of Minnesota and Yale Graduate Schools.  He is a diplomate of the National Board of Medical Examiners and the American Board of Pediatrics, and was certified by the American Board of Family Practice in 1981. He recently received the degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) from the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine. He has held professorial appointments in pediatrics, psychiatry, family medicine, community medicine, behavioral sciences, medical education, social dentistry, and human behavior and child development, at eight medical schools, two dental schools, three graduate schools, and two schools of social work.  He was a member of the planning committees and founding faculties of the University of Connecticut and the University of Nevada Medical Schools.  He served as President of Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana before going to the American Medical Association in 1985 as Director of the Division of Medical Education and Research Information.  He currently holds the titles of Scholar-in-Residence at the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences, University of Nevada School of Medicine, and Adjunct Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Northwestern University Medical School.

During his academic career, he has written, lectured, and conducted research in the fields of undergraduate and graduate medical education, moral development, interdisciplinary health professions education, medical ethics, rural health, behavioral sciences, humanistic medicine, child development, psychology, and dentistry. He has published over 150 articles and three books.