June 24, 2008

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - William Dismukes, M.D., professor emeritus of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) now has an endowed professorship named for him within the Division of Infectious Diseases. The endowment was approved by the University of Alabama Board of Trustees.

Dismukes is renowned professor of medicine and microbiology who once held leadership roles within UAB's School of Medicine, including vice chairman and interim chair. He served as director of the UAB internal medicine residency training program from 1981 to 2002, and he is a past director of the UAB Division of Infectious Diseases.

Throughout his career Dismukes earned several awards and honors, including being named a master teacher and laureate by the American College of Physicians. He won the 2005 Maxwell Finland Award from the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

Dismukes earned his medical degree from UAB and completed his residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. He also served as an epidemic intelligence officer for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, which is a training program and on-call group of the world's top disease sleuths.

As far back as the 1970s, Dismukes has been member of the National Institutes of Health-supported Mycoses Study Group. The group is a clinical trial network exploring new antimicrobials and vaccines to prevent and treat drug-resistant infections