Dr. Michael Baten wanted to help people who were hurting ever since he was 13 and saw the painful effects a stroke had on his mother.

Some 60-plus years later, he had become so well known for practicing medicine in Santa Fe that people would joke, If you are not seeing Dr. Baten, then you have a family member or friend who is.

The longtime Santa Fe neurologist and sleep medicine expert died Saturday in Albuquerque from a neurological illness that overcame him late last year, relatives and friends said. He had turned 75 in February.

Its no wonder he wanted to become a neurosurgeon, said ex-wife Caroline Crosby , referring to the impact his mothers stroke had on Baten. The hospital was his family.

Baten was born in Paterson, N.J., in February 1945. An only child, he developed an early interest in classical music and dressing well.

Following high school, Baten studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and then at Duke Universitys School of Medicine. After medical residencies in Virginia and New York City, he moved to New Mexico in the late 1970s with an eye toward opening his own practice.

Crosby and other friends said Baten took over a neurological practice run by another physician before later branching into sleep medicine.

He was always studying, always learning, always trying to become a better doctor, said his cousin Joan Ehrlich.

He would wake up at 4 or 5 a.m. to read medical journals, she recalled. He was so serious about this work that he read constantly. Anytime we were someplace together, I would always find him sitting off somewhere studying.

Batens knowledge of classical music would amaze people when, upon hearing a piece on the radio, he would identify not only the composer and title but the orchestra or symphony.

He could tell whether it was the London Philharmonic Orchestra or the Philadelphia Orchestra playing it, said Crosby, who also worked in her ex-husbands office for a time.

She recalled when he had at least 35,000 patient medical files and thats half of Santa Fe.

An avid bicyclist, skier and triathlete, he also developed an impeccable taste for dressing stylishly, Crosby and Ehrlich said.

He looked like he just stepped off the cover of GQ magazine, Crosby said. They say his mother, Edna, always looked like a movie star. I think Michael inherited her sense of fashion.

Rabbi Neil Amswych of Temple Beth Shalom shared stories in an email from those who praised Baten for his generous spirit and dedication to his profession.

In the early 90s, he went into St. Vincent Hospital [now Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center] to see a homeless man who had been having seizures in the arroyo, Amswych said. Michael gowned up with the nurses and bathed the man.

He loved his early days in Santa Fe, when the staff from the hospital would hold gurney races around the Plaza.

Baten is survived by his two children with Crosby Rachel Baten, 16, and Alex Baten, 19, and by several cousins.

Amsywch and Crosby said a memorial service for Baten is scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday at Temple Beth Shalom, 205 E. Barcelona Road.

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