Posted on November 28, 2005 at 2:35 p.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — The Board of Directors of the University of Alabama Health Services Foundation (HSF) has elected Ray L. Watts, M.D., its president for a three-year term, through September 2008.

Watts, professor and chair of the UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) Department of Neurology, succeeds Anton J. Bueschen, M.D., UAB professor of urology, who had been HSF president since 2001.

The HSF is a non-profit, group practice professional corporation within the UAB Health System. With 850 participating physicians, it is one of the largest physician practice plans in U.S. academic medicine and was founded in 1973 by the late pioneering UAB heart surgeon, John W. Kirklin, M.D.