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using template :GairdnerDM1949
He became first assistant in the paediatric department at Newcastle upon Tyne where he began to work under Professor Sir James Calvert Spence in 1945.<ref name="spence"/> In 1948, he became a consultant paediatrician at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, and associate lecturer in paediatrics at the University of Cambridge, where he remained until his retirement in 1975.<ref name="spence"/>
His obituary in the ''British Medical Journal'' described Gairdner as "an outstanding figure in the development of British Paediatrics after the second world war". His statistics from the special care baby unit were "invaluable in monitoring trends in perinatal mortality and morbidity since 1950." He constantly produced important research over a range of topics and he improved the management of respiratory problems in the newborn. He was appointed editor of the ''Archives of Disease in Childhood'' in 1964, a position he held for 15 years, until his retirement in 1979. During that time the journal "steadily increased in size, scientific content, and international reputation."<ref name="obit"/><ref name="spence"/><ref name="editorial">{{REFjournal
|last=Robinson
|init=RJ
}}</ref>
Gairdner's 1949 article, ''The Fate of the Foreskin: A Study of Circumcision'',<ref name="fate1949">{{REFjournal |last=Gairdner |init=DM |author-link=Douglas Gairdner |title=The fate of the foreskin: a study of circumcision |journal=British Medical Journal |volume=2 |issue=4642 |pages=1433-1437 |url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2051968/pdf/brmedj03656-0009.pdf |quote= |pubmedID=15408299 |pubmedCID=2051968 |DOI=10.1136/bmj.2.4642.1433 |date=1949 |accessdate=2019-10-28GairdnerDM1949}}</ref> was described as "a model of perceptive and pungent writing."<ref name="spence" /> It concluded that if circumcision became uncommon it would result in "the saving of about 16 children's lives lost from circumcision each year in this country..."<ref name="fate1949"/> According to Wallerstein, the article "began to affect the practice of circumcision by the British".<ref>{{REFjournal
|last=Wallerstein
|init=E