Cynthia J. Brown, M.D., MSPH, has been named the director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Division of Gerontology, Geriatrics and Palliative Care, and the UAB Comprehensive Center for Healthy Aging. Brown succeeds Richard Allman, M.D., in both posts. Allman, an internationally renowned leader in aging issues, has accepted a position as chief consultant for Geriatrics and Extended Care Services for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.The Division of Gerontology, Geriatrics and Palliative Care, established in 1984, is dedicated to helping aging individuals and patients with advanced or life-threatening illness attain their greatest productivity and the highest possible quality of life through innovative research, education and clinical care.
The Comprehensive Center for Healthy Aging, established in 1976, encourages and coordinates the activities of the multiple disciplines represented by the UAB schools of Business, Dentistry, Education, Engineering, Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing, Optometry and Public Health, plus the Joint Health Sciences departments and the College of Arts and Sciences, to fulfill its mission.
“Under Dr. Brown’s leadership, the division is well-poised to achieve the growth of its research programs, the maintenance of outstanding educational programs, and the further development of clinical programs that will help meet UAB’s mission to provide exemplary care to aging individuals and our patients with advanced or life-threatening illness,” said Seth Landefeld, M.D., chair of the UAB Department of Medicine.
“I am very excited that Dr. Brown has agreed to lead Comprehensive Center for Healthy Aging and the Division of Geriatrics, Gerontology and Palliative Care,” said Selwyn M. Vickers, M.D., FACS, senior vice president for Medicine and dean of the School of Medicine. “Dr. Brown has an excellent reputation nationally as a geriatrician and a geriatric scientist. She will be an outstanding successor to Dr. Allman.”
After a 10-year career as a physical therapist, Brown attended medical school at the University of North Carolina and trained in internal medicine, geriatrics and clinical epidemiology at Yale. She joined the UAB faculty in 2003. Supported by more than $2 million in federal grants, her research to improve mobility in hospitalized elders has won national acclaim, including the 2013 Outstanding Scientific Achievement for Clinical Investigation Award from the American Geriatrics Society.
In addition, Brown also has a strong track record of achievement in education and is the lead investigator of the federally funded UAB Geriatrics Education Center. In 2011, Brown became director of the Division’s Geriatric Medicine Section, and in 2013 she was named interim director of the division.