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As a consummate physician and writer, Dr. Baer will discuss the role of of the doctor who can educate the public about health issues of concern through the use of mass media.
Dr. Neal Baer is Executive Producer of the NBC television series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit . During his tenure, the series has won the Shine Award, the Prism Award, and the Media Access Award, and has grown in both critical and popular stature. The series regularly appears among the top ten television dramas in national ratings.
Prior to his work on SVU , Dr. Baer was Executive Producer of the NBC series ER . A member of the show's original staff and a writer and producer on the series for seven seasons, he was nominated for five Emmys as a producer. He also received Emmy nominations for Outstanding Writing in A Drama Series for the episodes "Hell and High Water" and "Whose Appy Now?" For the latter, he also received a Writers' Guild of America nomination.
Dr. Baer's other work includes "Warriors," an episode of China Beach , nominated for a Writers' Guild Award for best episodic drama, and the ABC Afterschool Special "Private Affairs," which he directed and wrote. The Association of Women in Film and Television selected the program, dealing with sexually transmitted diseases, as the Best Children's Drama of the Year. He recently wrote "The Doctor Corps," a feature film for Twentieth Century Fox; "Outreach," a pilot for the WB Network, which he also produced; and "The Edge," a pilot for CBS.
Dr. Baer graduated from Harvard Medical School and completed his internship in Pediatrics at Children's Hospital, Los Angeles. He received the Jerry L. Pettis Memorial Scholarship from the American Medical Association as the most outstanding medical student who has contributed to promoting a better understanding of medicine in the media. The American Association for the Advancement of Science selected him as a Mass Media Fellow. In 2003, he was honored by Physicians for Social Responsibility, Lupus L.A., and the Media Project.
Dr. Baer's primary medical interests are in adolescent health. He has written extensively for teens on health issues for Scholastic Magazine , covering such topics as teen pregnancy, AIDS, drug and alcohol abuse, and nutrition. Dr. Baer taught elementary school in Colorado and also worked as a research associate at USC Medical School, where he focused on drug and alcohol abuse prevention.
Dr. Baer graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Political Science from Colorado College. He holds master's degrees from Harvard Graduate School of Education and from Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in Sociology. Before working in television, he spent a year at the American Film Institute as a directing fellow. In 2000, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws from Colorado College.
Dr. Baer serves on the boards of many organizations related to health care, including the Venice Family Clinic, RAND Health, Advocates for Youth, Children Now, the Huckleberry Fund of Children's Hospital Los Angeles and the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (NOFAS). He is a trustee of the Writers Guild of America Health and Pension Fund, and a member of the Board of Associates at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.
Dr. Baer received the Valentine Davies Award for 2004 from the Writers Guild of America, West for "public service efforts in both the entertainment industry and the community at large, bringing dignity to and raising the standard for writers everywhere." In 2003 he received the Special Individual Achievement Award from the Media Project; the Leadership Award from NOFAS; the Loop Award from Lupus LA for educating the public about lupus and autoimmune diseases; and the Socially Responsible Medicine Award from Physicians for Social Responsibility for "accomplishment in crafting compelling health messages."