Social Justice in Healthcare - View from the Deep-South, USA

Dr. Pamela Payne Foster is a Preventive Medicine/Public Health Physician who is a Professor in the Department of Community and Rural Medicine and Deputy Director (as of 08/16/18), Institute for Rural Health Research, at The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa Regional Campus. Dr. Payne Foster received a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry Pre-Medicine from Xavier University of Louisiana and a master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences and the Doctor of Medicine degree from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee. She also completed her Internal Medicine internship and Preventive Medicine/Public Health residency from the State University of Stony Brook where she also received her MPH from Columbia School of Public Health. Before coming to the University of Alabama, she has served on the faculty of a variety of institutions including Morehouse School of Medicine, George Washington University, SUNY Stony Brook, and the National Bioethics Center for Health Care and Research at Tuskegee University. In addition to her broad training experiences in population and public health and bioethics and preventive medicine, her research interests include health disparities with a specific interest in HIV/AIDS related stigma in rural faith based settings in the Deep South. She has been involved in medical education through a variety of roles: as former Co-Clerkship Director for the Community Rural Medicine Clerkship, as a former Learning Community Leader, as a faculty member in the Community Rural Medicine Ambulatory Acting Internship, as a frequent Special Topics and Co-Enrolled Elective Instructor. Her main teaching areas of interest have been health disparities, bioethics and medical ethics, and diversity and cultural competency issues in health care. For example, she teaches a Special Topics course entitled: Cultural Competency in Health Care and she recently taught a special co-learning course entitled: Health Cultural Competency in Latinos. Dr. Foster also serves on a variety of committees both within her college and across the University of Alabama campus including: Former Chair of the Medical School’s 50th Anniversary of the Integration of the University of Alabama, committee member of the Medical School’s Diversity Committee, Former University of Alabama Faculty Senator and Co-Chair of the Faculty Life Committee, and Past President of the Black Faculty and Staff Association (2016-18).