Pamela Payne-Foster

Pamela Payne Foster, MD, MPH is a preventive medicine/public health physician who currently serves as associate professor in the Community and Rural Department at the University of Alabama School of Medicine, Tuscaloosa campus, as well as deputy director of the Institute for Rural Health Research. She also has served on the Wellness Advisory Board for the university's wellness program. Pamela 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 Alabama. Her current research area of interest is the study of HIV/AIDS related stigma in rural African Americans in Alabama, particularly in faith-based settings in rural Alabama. Her main areas of interest in all activities have been health disparities, including HIV/AIDS, obesity and diabetes, bioethics and medical ethics, and diversity and cultural competency issues in health care. Pamela received her BS degree in chemistry pre-medicine from Xavier University and her MS in biomedical sciences and MD from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee. She completed an internship in internal medicine and residency in preventive medicine/public health at State University of New York at Stony Brook where she also completed her MPH at Columbia University.