April 3, 2024
Dr. Sandral Hullett, a graduate of The University of Alabama Tuscaloosa Family Medicine Residency Program and a distinguished leader in rural health who dedicated her career to delivering health care to the poor and underserved, died March 22, 2024. She was 78 years old.
Described by her peers as a gifted clinician, effective administrator and tireless humanitarian, Hullett developed a preeminent national leadership position during her professional years for her expertise in rural health care.
“Dr. Hullet was and continues to be a role model for professionalism, advocacy and passion for work in rural Alabama,” said Dr. Pamela Payne-Foster, a professor of community medicine and population health with UA’s College of Community Health Sciences and a preventive medicine physician.
After graduating from the Tuscaloosa Family Medicine Residency, Hullett began her career as a family medicine physician at Greene County Hospital/Clinic in rural Eutaw, Ala. For 23 years, Hullett served as both a physician and as medical director for the non-profit West Alabama Health Services in Eutaw, where she supervised the operation of 24 primary health care facilities serving 20 rural Alabama counties. She also served as a preceptor in Eutaw for a large number of medical students, resident physicians and other health-care providers.
She later served as CEO of Cooper Green Mercy Hospital in Birmingham, Ala., becoming the first African American female hospital CEO in the state.
Active in local, state and national organizations, Hullet served on the Alabama Family Practice Rural Health Board, the Practicing Physicians Advisory Council for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Institute of Medicine Committee on Environmental Justice and the Kettering Foundation, among many others. She served as principal investigator for grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Hullett served on the Board of Trustees of the UA System from 1982 to 2001. At the time of her appointment, she was the first medical doctor, first female and second African American appointed to the board. Her contributions to higher education were recognized in 2001 when she received the national Distinguished Service Award in Trusteeship, the nation’s top honor bestowed on a lay board member of a public university.
Dr. John Wheat, professor and founding director of CCHS Rural Programs, said that as a UA trustee, Hullett cleared the way for rural medical education to gain traction in the state.
“Sandral was a pioneer with authentic voice explaining to policy makers near and far the desperate need for effective primary care in the (rural Alabama) Black Belt. She helped demonstrate the value of community health centers, rural practice and local leadership in affecting that care,” Wheat said.
Hullett received numerous other honors during her career, including induction into the Alabama Academy of Honor and the Institute of Medicine, a unit of the National Academy of Sciences. She was named Rural Practitioner of the Year by the National Rural Health Association in 1988, and she received the Clinical Recognition Award for Education and Training from the National Association of Community Health Centers.
A native of Birmingham, Ala., Hullett graduated from George Washington Carver High School, earned her undergraduate degree from Alabama A&M University, her medical degree from the Medical College of Pennsylvania and her master’s degree in public health from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
In 1976, Hullett was accepted into the Tuscaloosa Family Medicine Residency – at the time the first female and only the second African American accepted into the residency.
“It was a challenging time; you have to prove who you are and what you can do,” Hullett said in a 2012 interview with CCHS’s annual magazine, On Rounds. “I was uncertain about everything and wanted to do well. I ended up in the right place.”
Hullett was a pioneer in the College, Payne-Foster said. “She certainly paved the way for so many.”
Payne-Foster said she first got to know Hullett when they both worked on a large grant that focused on health disparities and health inequities in Alabama. “Since that time, I have had the privilege to know her as a mentor for me as an African American woman working in rural and public health. What an inspirational legacy she left behind for us to pick up the mantle and run with.”
Colleagues and friends of Hullet said that in everything she did, she raised awareness about rural health in Alabama and lived by the belief that one person can make a difference in people’s lives.
“A remarkable Alabamian,” Wheat said.
