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'Bad boy' finds Corvette on road to becoming surgeon: for this 'rebel,' restoring cars—then patients—became the cause; creative ability, dexterity, determination segued into cosmetic surgery

Lisette Hilton

Gary L. Baker, M.D., jokes that his first plastic surgery patient was a 1956 Corvette. The plastic surgeon who today practices in Overland Park, Kan., had great success with that particular patient, restoring it to the shape and luster that it had when it rolled off the assembly line.

Not exactly a model teenager

Growing up in a rural Nebraska working class neighborhood in South Omaha, Dr. Baker, admittedly, was a bad student. He got Cs and Ds in high school and was thrown out of school six times, he says.

"I did not know what studying was, and my parents were nice people but they did not ever ask if I did my homework or studied," he says. "I even had some 'behavioral problems,' in the sense that I was excused from school several times for things like being too vocal and fighting with other kids."

He remembers one instance in which his mother waited to get him from the school counseling office after he had gotten into a fight.

"She had this look of total disgust--like this is unsalvageable," Dr. Baker says. "Then we went home and she never really talked to me about it after that."

Car therapy

Under all that rebellion was a budding entrepreneur. Dr. Baker had owned about five cars before age 16. He would buy cars from the 1950s, which were ready to go to the scrap heap, for $25 or $50 and restore them, selling them at a profit.

His father, a construction worker, was also a mechanic of sorts. Dr. Baker would use his tools and take his advice when it came to cars.

"The thing that was nice is that I remember that being the first time I was able to connect with him," Dr. Baker says. "(My father) would give me information, but would not necessarily interfere. I think from a distance, he was mildly amused. I was turning into an entrepreneur."

In 1969, he saw an ad in the newspaper for a 1956 Corvette. He paid $800 for the car, although it was not running.

"It was a rare car, sitting on a farm about 50 miles from where I lived, and it had a chicken living in the front seat," he says.

The car became Dr. Baker's focus. His goal was to restore it to what it looked like when it was brand new.

"I did not know exactly where to begin, so I started by taking it totally apart," he says.

Dr. Baker hardly ever drove the car. It was not for driving, he says, it was for restoring. Instead, he remembers driving a '61 Chevy station wagon--one he painted with a paintbrush "... which probably explains why I never had a girlfriend," he says.

He worked on and off on that car for eight years and still owns it today. Dr. Baker says he got the ability to focus and carry a project through from working on the Corvette. He would have to fabricate parts that were no longer available. He would track down anything that was available.

"And as a result of that experience, in retrospect, I kind of think that is what plastic surgery is. Only at the time, I did not know that," he says.

School becomes a focus

Dr. Baker put himself through college and got an engineering degree at the University of Nebraska. The car took a back seat to his schooling.

As restoring cars had clicked, so did how to study. He noticed in college that the foreign students would receive good grades and thought he should be able to do the same. So, he watched them work and noticed that they were relentless about their studying. Dr. Baker would challenge himself to stay in the library 30 minutes after the last foreign student left. It worked. In four years of engineering school, he says, he does not remember getting less than an A.

Despite doing so well in school and getting a job with the Army Corps of Engineers, Dr. Baker would still sometimes want to escape to his garage, where he would work on his beloved car, using his hands.

He set his sights on medical school, landing a spot at the coveted Washington University in St. Louis.

Today, he boasts a long list of educational accomplishments. He is one of a rare breed of plastic surgeons who trained in internal medicine; then, he studied general surgery.

"It gives me a global overview and more awareness for other issues. I tend to practice medicine in a broader way," he says. "Most of the surgeons I know tend to be compartmentalized ... and I tend to be so immersed, it is almost like I am married to medicine."

Finding a niche

He found his niche, plastic surgery, after he befriended a Porsche-loving plastic surgeon, who let him observe his practice while talking with Dr. Baker about cars.

Then one day, while performing surgery at the University of Kansas, the anesthesiologist in the operating room said he had a '74 Porsche for sale.

Dr. Baker was quite taken by the car, and is working on it to this day, restoring it to its original luster.

"Right now, I'm trying to get some special tires. I found someone who has a mold and he will reproduce these tires," he says.

"I didn't start out as a doctor who wanted a hobby and decided to start restoring cars. I would say that the first car triggered a process in me. It made a difference in my eye-hand coordination. It made me become familiar with using hand tools, and innovating and molding and changing things and not being afraid to take things apart knowing that I could get them back together, literally and physically," he says.

Gary L. Baker, M.D.

Medical School: Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri

* Internal Medicine: University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa

* General Surgery: University of Iowa, Iowa City

* Plastic surgery residency: University of Tennessee, Chattanooga

* Hand surgery fellowship: University of Louisville, Chattanooga

* Breast reconstruction fellowship: University of Louisville

* Raised in: South Omaha, Neb.

* Family: single, no children

* Hobbies: restoring old cars

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