September 4, 2019
Students from the University of Alabama School of Medicine named a faculty member and a resident on the Tuscaloosa Regional Campus winners of 2019 Argus Awards.
The College of Community Health Sciences, which operates The University of Alabama Family Medicine Residency and University Medical Center, also serves as the School of Medicine’s Tuscaloosa Regional Campus and provides clinical education for a portion of third- and fourth-year medical students.
Dr. Joseph Wallace, chair of the College’s Department of Surgery, received the Excellence in Education by a Community-Based Physician award. Dr. Zach Smith, a third-year resident of The University of Alabama Family Medicine Residency, received the Best Resident Educator award.
The Argus Awards give medical students the chance to honor their mentors, professors, courses and course directors for outstanding service to medical education and training. The awards will be presented during a ceremony on September 20 at the UAB Alumni House in Birmingham, Alabama.
Dr. Pamela Payne-Foster, professor of community medicine and population health for the College of Community HealthSciences, has co-authored: “Interdisciplinary, community, and peer leadership approach to addressing housing among persons living with HIV in the rural South,” published in the January 2019 issue ofHousing Policy Debate; “Physician trust and home remedy use among low-income black and whites with hypertension: Findings from the TRUST study,” accepted for publication in the Journal of Racial and Health Disparities; and “Reducing the African American disease burden in the Deep South: Addressing the role of faith and spirituality,” accepted for publication in AIDS and Behavior.
Dr. Raheem Paxton, associate professor of community medicine and population health for the College of Community Health Sciences, has co-authored: “Patient recommendations for reducing long-lasting economic burden after breast cancer,” accepted for publication in Cancer; “Health behaviors and lifestyle interventions in African American breast cancer survivors – A review,” accepted for publication in Frontiers in Oncology; “Correlates of dysfunctional career thoughts in breast cancer survivors from the Bahamas,” accepted for publication in the Journal of Psychosocial Oncology; “Survivorship issues in older breast cancer survivors,” accepted for publication in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment; “Health disparities among the United States Mainland, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the United States Virgin Islands,” in Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice; and “Managing spirituality within distress throughout the cancer continuum,” accepted for publication in the American Journal of Nursing.
Dr. Tom Weida, chief medical officer for University Medical Center, was selected by the American Academy of Family Physicians for its permanent seat on the Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC). The committee, established in 1991 by the American Medical Association, is a volunteer group of physicians who make recommendations about how to value a physicians’ work when computing health care prices in the country’s Medicare program. Weida, also a professor of family medicine for the College of Community Health Sciences, which operates UMC, is currently an alternate for the permanent RUC seat and will begin his service as a permanent seat member in January 2020. He also serves as a member of the RUC’s Practice Expense Subcommittee.
Dr. Angela Adams Powell received the 2019 Martha Myers Role Model Award at the University of Alabama School of Medicine white coat ceremony on August 18,2019. Powell is an alumna of The University of Alabama Family Medicine Residency Class of 1996 and completed the Obstetrics Fellowship in Tuscaloosa in 1997. The residency is operated by the UA College of Community Health Sciences.
Powell earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Biology from UA. She earned her medical degree from the UA School of Medicine in 1993. Powell completed her residency and fellowship in Tuscaloosa before beginning her practice in rural Alabama.
Powell has practiced in Monroeville, Alabama, for 22 years. She has also served as a preceptor for the UA School of Medicine, the University of South Alabama College of Medicine and the Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine. She has also served in statewide health care and leadership roles.
“It is a delight and a joy to share the art and science of rural medicine with students,” Powell said in her commentary in the ceremony program.
The Martha Myers Role Model Award recognizes alumni of the UA School of Medicine who epitomize the ideal of service to their community. The award recipients are examples of professional integrity and commitment to medicine. The award was established in 2007 and is intended to inspire future physicians to higher service.
Powell was nominated by Dr. John Wheat, president of the medical alumni association at the UA School of Medicine. Wheat is a professor of family, internal, and rural medicine at CCHS and provides clinical services in internal and occupational medicine at University Medical Center, which the College operates.
“To her, being a doctor means being a family doctor-one who cares for families through generations and over the broad spectrum of illnesses, in rural Alabama,” Wheat said during the presentation of the award.
Award recipients are honored with a plaque featuring their biography that will hang in the Martha Myers Role Model Lounge in Volker Hall on the University of Alabama at Birmingham campus.
The white coat ceremony is an annual event that welcomes the entering class of medical students to the UA School of Medicine.
