AlumniBulletin - University of Alabama at Birmingham

AN ANNIVERSARY FOR AOA
Celebrating a Century of Honors
By Roger Shuler
Feature Stories
When William Root was one of the
six Chicago medical students who
founded Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA),
the national medical honor society, in
1902, he said he viewed the society as
a protest against “a condition which
associated the name ‘medical student’
with rowdyism, boorishness, immorality,
and low educational ideals.”
At the time of AOA’s founding, no
more than 15 percent of the some
25,000 medical students in the United
States were college graduates. Many
medical schools themselves were of
dubious quality, some operating out of
storefronts, tenements, or warehouses.
Much has changed in the 100 years
since AOA began. Perhaps no one
symbolizes that better than Clancy
Johnson, M.D., who graduated from
the UASOM in 2002 and started her
internship at UAB Hospital in June.
Johnson was one of only seven students
from her class to become AOA
members as juniors, and she was president
of the UAB chapter as a senior.
AOA membership is based on academic
performance and leadership.
All nominated students must be in
the top 25 percent of their class and
demonstrate qualities such as leadership,
fairness, compassion, integrity,
and a commitment to service.
“I think it’s a great honor to be in
AOA,” Johnson says. “It helps you get
interviews for residency programs
and generally just helps you stand
out. I think students are very aware of
what AOA means, and I hope that
awareness will keep growing.”
AOA has a strong tradition at the
UASOM. The UAB chapter was
founded in 1950 and has more than
900 members. William B. Deal, M.D.,
dean of the UASOM, served as national
president in 1994-95, and Suzanne
Oparil, M.D., a UAB cardiologist, has
served as secretary/treasurer.
UAB celebrated AOA’s 100th
birthday by hosting a dinner, featuring
a talk by UASOM alumnus
Peyton T. Taylor, Jr., M.D., professor
of obstetrics and gynecology at the
University of Virginia and medical
“Worthy to Serve the Suffering”:
C. Bruce Alexander, councilor of the
UAB chapter, says AOA still encourages
students to live up to its motto.
director of the cancer center there.
Taylor’s talk, titled “From Charlottesville
to Birmingham in Three Giant Steps,”
chronicled the contributions of Robley
Dunglison, M.D.; Sir William Osler,
M.D.; and Tinsley Harrison, M.D. All
wrote textbooks that changed the
course of medical science.
Pathologist C. Bruce Alexander,
M.D., is the current councilor of the
UAB chapter. He became a member of
AOA while a student at the University
of Virginia in 1970. “AOA is an honor
society, but it also sponsors activities
that affect all medical students,”
Alexander says. “For example, our
local chapter is involved with the AOA
Art Show and service projects, and it
helps with student orientation.
“The AOA motto is: ‘Worthy to
serve the suffering.’ There is a great deal
of emphasis on expanding the total
education of the medical student.”
Johnson values that approach to
medical education. She grew up in
Cullman and earned a bachelor’s
degree in chemistry at Birmingham-
Southern College, where she played
on the tennis team. “When I was
about eight years old, I knew I liked
science,” she says. “Then my grandmother
developed lung cancer, and I
spent some time with her doctor. I
liked the way he related to her, and I
think that helped influence me to go
into medicine.”
Johnson plans to stay involved
with AOA. “While I was a student,
we tried to get more involvement
with the AOA from all medical students
and the faculty, too. That’s
something I hope the students coming
up behind me will continue.”
UASOM faculty in 1990. Building on the success of
the Black Belt Initiative, they have developed a
number of effective outreach programs, including
the Alabama Partnership for Cancer Control (a joint
effort established in 1996 between the CCC and the
American Cancer Society), the Alabama Department
of Health, and other related organizations to facilitate
access to health-care resources in underserved
areas of the state.
Both Partridge and Fouad recognize the need to
involve lay people in the CCC’s programs. “It is only
when we work directly with people in the communities
that change comes about,” points out Fouad.
With that in mind, the CCC established the
Deep South Network for Cancer Control specifically
to educate local residents so that they, in turn, can
educate their family members, friends, and neighbors
about cancer. This grassroots initiative, which
started as a pilot program funded by a $50,000 state
grant in 1998, enlisted CCC staff to educate women
and men in underserved communities about prevention
measures, the need for screening, and the
importance of early detection. The success of the
Deep South Network gained nationwide attention,
and the NCI awarded the program a five-year, $6.1-
million grant in 2000. Now, with the collaborative
help of Tuskegee University, the University of
Alabama, and other institutions, the CCC has
expanded the program to reach underserved populations
in Mississippi as well as in Alabama.
About 785 lay people have been trained through
the Deep South Network as Community Health
Advisors (CHAs) and Community Health Advisors
as Research Partners (CHARPS). CHAs also play a
vital role in the REACH 2010 Project, a federally
funded, four-year, $3.6-million study that began in
2001. REACH 2010 draws on the combined
resources of the CCC and two established regional
coalitions—the House of Hope, Inc., headed by
Dennis King, Sr., in Mobile County, and Sisters in
15
Survivorship through Action and Support (SIS-
TAS), led by Carrie Nelson Hale of Montgomery.
Fouad coordinates and serves as principal investigator
for REACH 2010, which is focusing on eliminating
barriers that prevent or discourage minority
women from getting early diagnosis and follow-up
treatment for breast and cervical cancer.
In addition, Fouad and Partridge serve as codirectors
of the Breast Cancer Research and Care Program.
Funded by the Avon Foundation, this new study
focuses on the adequacy of diagnostic and therapeutic
care delivery in rural underserved populations in
relation to the prognosis of breast cancer patients.
Like REACH 2010, the Breast Cancer Research and
Care Program builds on the collaborative partnerships
the CCC has already formed with regional
health-care professionals—partnerships that will continue
to improve health care for the underserved and
narrow the gap in cancer treatment and mortality.