In Remembrance: Dr. Paul Mozley

September 15, 2021

Dr. Paul Mozley, a long-time faculty member at The University of Alabama College of Community Health Sciences who founded one of the nation’s first Obstetrics Fellowship for Family Physicians, died recently. Mozley developed the fellowship at CCHS, where he also served as chair of the College’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology for 15 years.

The fellowship, now the oldest obstetrics fellowship training program for family medicine physicians in the country, has been a model for similar programs in the United States and internationally, said Dr. Dan Avery, professor emeritus for CCHS and former chair of the College’s OB/GYN Department.

While family medicine physicians have delivered babies and provided maternity and newborn care for decades, the lack of rural maternity care, not only in Alabama but in the rest of the country, gave Mozley the idea of extending training for graduates of the UA Tuscaloosa Family Medicine Residency Program, Avery said. The fellowship provides experience with high-risk, operative obstetrics and exposure to as many deliveries and office gynecologic procedures as possible. The Tuscaloosa Family Medicine Residency is operated by CCHS

Mozley was born in Decatur, Alabama, in 1928. He completed a bachelor’s degree at UA in 1950 and earned his medical degree from the Medical College of Alabama in Birmingham in 1955. He completed a rotating surgery internship in 1956 at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and then completed an obstetrics and gynecology residency at the Naval Hospitals in Corona and San Diego, California, in 1959. Mozley completed a psychiatry residency at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda and the U.S. Naval Hospital in Philadelphia in 1970.

Mozley was board certified in obstetrics and gynecology as well as psychiatry. He was a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He was awarded the Chairman’s Award for Clinical Research by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in 1969 for outstanding contributions to the knowledge of obstetrics and gynecology. He was a decorated Navy physician, receiving the U.S. President’s Meritorious Service Award for Excellence in 1973 and 1975 for his work with returning prisoners of war who had been captured in Vietnam. Also in 1975, he received the U.S. Surgeon General’s Merit Award for Outstanding Services to the Medical Department in recognition of a distinguished career in service to his country.

Mozley was a faculty member in psychiatry and behavioral sciences as well as obstetrics and gynecology at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk from 1976-1977. He served as professor and director of undergraduate education at East Carolina University School of Medicine (now Brody School of Medicine) from 1979-1984.

Mozley came to UA in 1984 as professor and chair of the CCHS Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and as professor of psychiatry. He was awarded the rank of professor emeritus by UA in 2000.