Christina Baik

Biography

Dr. Baik treats patients who have lung, head and neck cancers. She is also involved in lung cancer prevention research.  Dr. Christina Baik was very interested in sciences in high school but also felt very drawn to community service. She felt that becoming a doctor was a perfect way to combine her interests in sciences and community service.  During residency, Dr. Baik took care of many patients with various illnesses and felt an especially close connection with cancer patients. She felt that many cancer patients had a perspective of life that enriched and challenged her as a physician and as a person. She also felt very privileged as many cancer patients and their families allowed her to see some of the most intimate details of their lives as they took each step of the treatment process. While cancer diagnosis was devastating news for most patients and their families, she witnessed that the bad news brought out the best in many of them. So she decided that taking care of cancer patients would be a rewarding way to commit my time and energy.  Dr. Baik is involved in lung cancer prevention research. She is especially interested in identifying risk factors that predict lung cancer development among people who never smoked and strategies to prevent lung cancer among former smokers. She is also involved in biomarker projects where the goal is to develop blood tests to identify lung cancer when it is curable.  In her lifetime as a physician, Dr. Baik hopes that medicine will be able to identify those who are at high risk for lung cancer among "never-smokers" so that appropriate prevention strategies may be implemented. She also hopes for the establishment of effective early detection strategies for the majority of lung cancers at their early curable stages.

Research Interest

Cancer Care (Lung), Medical Oncology