Kaitlan Baston, MD, MSc, DFASAM

Kaitlan Baston, MD, MSc, DFASAM, has been appointed by Governor Phil Murphy as the new Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Health. Dr. Baston is the first Cooper University Health Care physician ever appointed to the highest public health position in the State of New Jersey.

Dr. Baston built and led the Cooper Center for Healing and Cooper's Division of Addiction Medicine. She also served as Medical Director of Government Relations at Cooper and is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. She is board certified in both Family Medicine and Addiction Medicine and has been recognized nationally for her clinical expertise in perinatal substance use.

Dr. Baston and her team became nationally renowned for their innovative work in the delivery of addiction treatment by emergency medical services (EMS). Through their partnership with the New Jersey Department of Health, Cooper became the first EMS team in the United States to administer buprenorphine to patients who have overdosed.

Dr. Baston has a keen interest in public health policy. She has taken an active role in public policy related to substance use disorder treatment and addressing social determinants of health to improve population health. Over the years, she has spoken to Congress and has worked with federal and state lawmakers and regulators on several legislative and policy initiatives.

Dr. Baston obtained a master’s degree in neuroscience from Kings College London and then graduated from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. She pursued full spectrum family medicine training with obstetrics in Seattle, Washington; and her work in primary care illuminated the stigma and marginalization associated with addiction. She observed that both patients and medical professionals suffer from the lack of addiction medicine training and integration into health care. With the goals of community centered health care delivery, population health improvement, and hospital system quality improvement, she completed an American Board of Addiction Medicine (ABAM) accredited fellowship in addiction medicine.

Following her training, she returned to the east coast to begin her career. In 2015 she became the medical director of Cooper’s Addiction Medicine Program and built what is now the Center for Healing. The Center includes integrated pain, addiction, and behavioral health care; an inpatient addiction consult service; outpatient specialty clinics; a wrap-around perinatal substance use disorder program; undergraduate and graduate medical education in addiction medicine; research; and several million dollars in grant funded programming. This work expanded to state and national level policy in the field of addiction medicine, and beyond.

Currently, Dr. Baston is focused on work at a policy level to support state-funded programs for substance use disorder treatment and improvements in population health by addressing social determinants of health. In her role as Medical Director of Government Relations, she strove to ensure that all patients have access to compassionate care and evidence-based medical treatments that allow them to live full and satisfying lives. Dr. Baston was proud to work with an interdisciplinary team of like-minded, driven individuals at Cooper, dedicated to making positive change in the health care system.