Six from UAB named to Alabama Healthcare Hall of Fame

The Alabama Healthcare Hall of Fame has named its 2020 inductees, including six individuals from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

The Alabama Healthcare Hall of Fame was founded in 1997 with a purpose of recognizing those persons, living or deceased, who have made outstanding contributions to, or rendered exemplary service for, health care in the state of Alabama. The contributions by the recipients must distinguish them from the mainstream of others working in the field.

The UAB honorees for 2020 are:

• Charles C. Butterworth Jr., M.D. (deceased). Butterworth was a professor in the Department of Nutrition Sciences in the School of Health Professions. He published “The Skeleton in the Hospital Closet” in 1974, documenting what became known as hospital malnutrition, leading to the improvement of nutritional support for patients. He was named chair of the newly created Nutrition Sciences Department in 1977 and served in that capacity until 1988. He participated in early studies on the treatment of acute leukemia with aminopterin — one of the first drugs in the history of medicine to bring about remissions of a malignant disease.
• William Kendrick Hare, M.D. (deceased). Hare, an Alabama native and professor of pharmacology, was the first full-time chair of the Department of Pediatrics, serving from 1951-1963.
• Michael A. Callahan, M.D. Callahan is a professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at UAB’s Callahan Eye Hospital. He has been named a Distinguished Alumnus of the UAB School of Medicine. Callahan is president of the International Retinal Research Foundation and is on the Board of the Eyesight Foundation and the Callahan Eye Hospital Board. He is a member of the American Society of Ophthalmic Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery, American Academy of Ophthalmology, and the American Board of Ophthalmology.
• Howard W. Houser, Ph.D. Houser is professor emeritus in the Department of Health Services Administration and a former associate dean in the School of Health Professions. His career at UAB spanned 45 years from 1965 until his retirement in 2010. His first assignment was to orchestrate the desegregation of UAB Hospital in 1965. Among other international efforts, Houser created a four-year program to educate Chinese students in health administration, graduating the first class in 1989. Since then, he hosted more than 100 visiting students, scholars and medical delegations and helped establish a state-of-the-art pediatric hospital China.
• Cynthia Selleck, Ph.D., R.N. Selleck’s career has centered on providing primary care to and developing the workforce to meet the needs of diverse and underserved populations. She began her career at UAB in 1981 as an assistant professor in the UAB School of Nursing and graduated with a Ph.D. in nursing from the school in 1987. She returned to the UAB School of Nursing in 2010 as professor and associate dean for Clinical and Global Partnerships. She is nationally known for leading 45 grant-funded projects to expand the number of health professionals to provide primary care, particularly in rural and inner-city underserved areas. At UAB, she led the establishment of the Nurse Family Partnership of Central Alabama, the VA Nursing Academic Partnership with the Birmingham VA Medical Center and the UAB Nursing Partnership, which includes the nurse-managed Providing Access to Healthcare Clinic and Heart Failure Transitional Care Services for Adults Clinic that provide care for underserved patients with diabetes and heart failure, respectively, who are discharged from UAB Hospital. Selleck also served as director of the Area Health Education Center (AHEC) Program, housed at UAB, the first and only statewide sustained grant funding to bring the federal program’s benefits to Alabama.
• Sergio Stagno, M.D. Stagno, Distinguished Professor at UAB, was the chair of the Department of Pediatrics for 25 years, from 1989-2014. He was also physician-in-chief of Children’s of Alabama. In 1993, he was appointed the Katharine Reynolds Ireland Chair of Pediatrics. He also served as interim vice president for Health Affairs in 1995, interim president of the University of Alabama Health Services Foundation in 2008 and as president of HSF from 2010-2012.

The other 2020 honorees are Joseph L. Fontenot, M.D., Henry A. Frazer, Pharm.D., Zack Studstill, DMD, William Jefferson Terry, M.D., Celia A. Wallace and Richard C. Whitaker. Wallace is on the UAB School of Nursing Board of Visitors, and Studstill is a graduate of the UAB School of Dentistry.

“No other not-for-profit health care organization in the country honors a wide range of health care professionals including physicians, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, scientists, administrators, educators and related fields,” said Dennis Stanard, president of the Alabama Healthcare Hall of Fame. “It is this special camaraderie that has endeared the organization to thousands of professionals and family members.”

The Awards Luncheon is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 26, at the Alabama Activity Center in Montgomery, with a reception at 11:30 a.m. and luncheon at noon. Photos of Hall of Fame honorees are displayed in the West Pavilion of UAB Hospital.