UAB Synopsis, Vol. 26, No. 39, October 29, 2007
Senior Vice President for Medicine and Dean Robert R. Rich, MD, recently appointed Department of Pediatrics Professor H. Hughes Evans, MD, PhD, as School of Medicine senior associate dean for academic affairs.
“With her deep commitment to the education of the next generation of physicians and her training, experience, and accomplishments as both a physician and a humanist, Dr. Evans is an ideal individual to take on this important new responsibility. She has already assembled an exceptionally strong team of associate and assistant deans. I am fully confident that our academic programs will continue to flourish and advance as these deans implement new ideas for undergraduate, graduate, and continuing medical education,” Dr. Rich says.
Dr. Evans served 2 years as associate dean for students. “I enjoyed dealing with students, and I will continue to be involved. Medical education impacts student life, so Laura Kezar and I are working together to address student issues,” says Dr. Evans. Physiatrist Laura B. Kezar, MD, is the new associate dean for students.
Dr. Evans will continue ushering in the new curriculum. “Folding out the curriculum has been an exciting and challenging process,” she says. “We are nailing the details into place, especially for the third and fourth years. As we lay the groundwork we’ll fine tune it until we have it where we need it to be.
“I have a great team of faculty educators actively working on all aspects of the medical curriculum. In particular, Roger Berkow, MD, associate dean for undergraduate medical education, has dealt with everything from the conceptual to the nitty-gritty, providing important leadership to this process,” she says.
Dr. Evans also oversees continuing medical education (CME) and graduate medical education (GME). She says Gustavo R. Heudebert, MD, assistant dean for GME, has “ensured we are providing institutional support to each of our programs.”
The CME group, led by Assistant Dean for Continuing Medical Education Jeroan J. Allison, MD, offers education program for physicians, and certifies grand rounds, seminars, and meetings. It also has a large research component, the Alabama Practice-Based CME Network.
“The CME group is unique,” Dr. Evans says. It coordinates a large Alabama and Mississippi practice-based network to assist busy clinicians with incorporating new medical knowledge into their practices. It also participates in research about how physicians learn and translate new medical knowledge into their daily practice.”
Her primary goals for the year are to finish laying out the clinical aspects of the new curriculum while continually reflecting on the process, tweaking it, being mindful of its implications and its effects on the students.
“We want to achieve the right balance, providing a rigorous medical education for students while nurturing the idealism and compassion they entered medical school with,” she says.
Dr. Evans received her undergraduate degree with honors from Princeton University and her MD degree and a PhD in the history of science from Harvard University. She completed her postdoctoral training at UAB and a research fellowship in social medicine and health policy at Harvard. In 1994 she joined the UAB faculty. In addition to her appointment in pediatrics she holds appointments in the Departments of Sociology and History.