Archer Baskerville, MD

Biography

After 38 years in private cardiology practice, Dr. Archer Baskerville retired in 2019, just a few weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the world. Perhaps it was the constant stream of news about a global health crisis, or his stubborn steadfastness, or just his love for and pride in medicine, but the call to serve the community and public health was too strong. In early 2021, he “un-retired” and joined the VCU Health Tappahannock Hospital to bring compassionate, expert heart care to the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula. 

Dr. Baskerville diagnoses, treats, and cares for people’s cardiovascular needs — any condition that may impact the heart or blood vessels, such as hypertension, coronary artery disease, rhythm disorders, and heart failure.

The key to being a good cardiologist? It’s not just medical expertise, he says. 

“As in life, what it takes to be successful as a physician is to love humanity and nature, to live the Golden Rule, to show respect, to maintain your dignity and integrity, to speak truth, be compassionate, love yourself and your neighbor,” he says. “And as a physician, we never forget to lay hands on a person to comfort, heal and do no harm. That’s the Hippocratic oath.”

Dr. Baskerville returns to the VCU community in 2021 much like the way he first stepped onto campus over 50 years ago: During a seismic shift in the course of American history.

It was 1968, and he was a student entering the School of Pharmacy at the then-Medical College of Virginia. He recalls the Civil Rights era, the Vietnam War, and counterculture “hippy” movements colliding together and, for him any many others, creating a self-awakening of sorts: “I asked myself,” he recalls, “‘What does this all mean?’” 

At the same time, he was fascinated by the first heart and kidney transplantations occurring at VCU, which remains an East Coast leader in transplantation. The world events of the time, while witnessing the “cataclysmic change in medicine and surgery,” shifted his course of study. He pivoted from the pharmacy track to become a surgeon, but ultimately decided on cardiology. “And here I am today, more than 40 years later, very proud of the direction I chose,” he says.

Dr. Baskerville went into private practice in 1981 as a cardiologist. With the support of his wife, peer physicians (especially, he notes, VCU professor and pioneer in the field of interventional cardiology Dr. George Vetrovec), “my practice survived, thrived, and sustained.”

In his approach to care, Dr. Baskerville emphasizes “taking control” of one’s heart health. He preaches diagnosis and treatment based on science and facts — the collective generations of research that inform today’s modern cardiac care — and using this evidence to create personalized therapies to control blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes and other heart and related chronic conditions. “I also encourage consistent exercise, appropriate diet, weight loss if needed, avoiding illicit substances, pursuit of good sleep habits, and taking care of your mental health,” he says. “My goal is to listen, make decisions together, and take a holistic approach to care. I want to empower patients and their families to take care of their hearts and live a long, prosperous, and healthy life.” 

For Dr. Baskerville, being one of the health system’s senior-most physicians doesn’t mean he gets to rest on his laurels. Like all other physicians and specialists, he must work to ensure his knowledge remains relevant and current, especially in an area of medicine that is constantly putting out new research and data. “We owe it to our patients and ourselves to maintain this relevance if we are to continue to take care of people in an appropriate and responsible way with the best information in hand,” he says. 

And with the affiliated VCU School of Medicine — his alma mater, which he refers to as the “academic village serving the surrounding medical communities” — Dr. Baskerville has a new opportunity to share knowledge with the healthcare leaders of tomorrow. “I am here to continue to share my experiences and pass forward my knowledge to the medical students, interns, residents, fellows, and peers without exception,” he says. “Knowledge is never stagnant, but active and alive and free to be exchanged.”