The Division of Pediatric Endocrinology at UAB was formally established in 1964 with the arrival of Dr. Russell Cunningham, the first trained pediatric endocrinologist in Alabama. A native of Bayou La Batre, Dr. Cunningham returned to the state following his fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital and laid the foundation for specialized care in pediatric endocrinology. For over two decades, he served as a one-person division, delivering expert care to children with diabetes and other endocrine disorders. He pioneered a model of comprehensive, family-centered endocrine care long before it became standard. In 1990, Drs. Katrina Parker and Joycelyn Atchison joined the division, bringing a collaborative dimension to endocrine care. Dr. Cunningham retired in 1997, and following his passing in 2006, the Russell Cunningham Memorial Research Scholarship was established to support medical students with an interest in academic pediatrics.

In mid-2000, Dr. Kenneth McCormick was appointed as the second division director of the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology. While in Wisconsin, he had been director of the core laboratory for a seven year, state-wide, NIH-funded, non-interventional, longitudinal study of Type 1 diabetes sequelae. Approximately seven months thereafter, with the addition of Dr. Gail Mick, the division had expanded to five members, some of which were part time. Drs Mick and McCormick were collaborators on numerous clinical and laboratory-based research studies. See timeline of faculty appointments below.

 Note: this timeline excludes faculty with less than three years as a faculty member prior to their relocation. (Drs. Moreland, Martin and Colvin)

Conceived as an enterprise to coordinate and enhance diabetes research and care throughout the UAB campus, the Comprehensive Diabetes Center was established in 2018, involving more than 10 departments and 250 faculty members. Several pediatric endocrinology faculty members are center members, partaking in the disparate collaborative research opportunities available at the center.

Since 2001, the endocrine service has flourished as a clinical juggernaut, with a nearly six-fold increase in outpatient visits and inpatient admissions. Clinic census snowballed from 2,500 visits in 2001 to nearly 14,000 in 2018. Incontestably, the spike in endocrine referrals paralleled the surge in childhood obesity, especially rife in the Southeast, with its attendant co-morbidities such as type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia, PCO syndrome, metabolic syndrome, early puberty and questionable hypothyroidism.

Quite unanticipated, however, was the upsurge of type 1 diabetes in Alabama, appearing in younger and younger children, sometimes in those less than 5 years of age. This trend started in the late 80’s or perhaps earlier. Alabama was not alone. Type 1 diabetes expansion was observed throughout the US, even world-wide. Based on a World Health Organization survey spanning 10 years to 2006, and upon examining 10 years of records from 57 countries, it was reported that the incidence of type 1 diabetes had increased an average of 5.3% per year in North America, 4% in Asia and 3.2% in Europe. Another study, which extracted data from US diabetes registries from 2002 to 2009, corroborated the growing incidence of this chronic disease, a relative increase of 2.7% each year. The worrisome and escalating incidence in type 1 diabetes remains to this day unexplained.

During this same time period, namely, 2001 to the present, several comprehensive, multi-specialty clinics were established at Children’s of Alabama. These clinics, bulleted below, involve physicians from other subspecialties (e.g., genetics, rehab medicine, cardiology, orthopedics, etc.), in addition to ancillary health care providers (nutritionists, child psychologists, social workers, pharmacists, etc.).

Leadership Transtions

• Dr. Katrina Parker (2003-2009) led the division through a period of steady clinical growth.
• Dr. Kenneth McCormick (2011–2019), a national expert in diabetes research, expandedresearch infrastructure and multidisciplinary programs.
• Dr. Ambika Ashraf (2019–present) currently serves as the Division Director and the Ralph Frohsin Endowed Chair in Pediatric Endocrinology. Under her leadership, the division has grown significantly in both size and national impact.

Distinct Comprehensive Clinics

List of comprehensive multi-disciplinary clinics, and their directors, inaugurated since 2001:

• Type II Diabetes Clinic- Dr. Mary Lauren Scott

• Lipid Disorders Clinic - Dr. Ambika Ashraf

• Metabolic Bone Disorders Clinic - Dr. Ambika Ashraf and Dr. Kenneth McCormick

• Newborn Screening (hypothyroidism and CAH) Program- Dr. Gail Mick

• Turner Syndrome Clinic - Giovanna Beauchamp

• Thyroid Cancer/Nodules Clinic - Dr. Pallavi Iyer

• Cystic Fibrosis Related Diabetes Clinic - Dr. Michael Stalvey

• Gender Clinic- Dr. Hussein Abdullatif

• Diabetes Insulin Pump Program- Dr. Joycelyn Atchison.

Fellowship Program

In 2001, the most pressing mission was to develop a fellowship program given the relentless decline in pediatric residents wishing to pursue a career in endocrinology which, alarmingly, paralleled the aforementioned nationwide rise in the incidence of both type I and II diabetes. With the proliferation of endocrine disorders and concomitant decline in the number of young endocrinologists, these antithetical trends did not bode well for endocrine care in Alabama. Fortuitously, and timely, funding for the three-year fellowship was ensured by an endowment from the Bruno Diabetes Foundation. Parenthetically, years before 2001, the largess of the Joseph Bruno family supported not only the endocrine fellowship but also multiple diabetes-related academic/clinical activities. Accreditation of the fellowship program was announced in 2002.

Endocrine fellows are listed in chronological order:        

• Ambika Ashraf 2003-2006

• Whitney Brown 2005-2008

• Amy Burton 2007-2010

• James Gardner 2008-2011

• Alison Lunsford 2010-2013

• Caroline Colvin 2011-2014

• Linnea Larson-Williams 2012-2015

• Alexandra Martin 2013-2015

• Shelly Mercer 2015-2018

• Heather Choat 2016-2019

• Bhuvana Sunil 2017-2020

• Jessica Schmitt 2017-2020           

• Jurhee Freese 2018-2021

• Erin Greenup 2018-2021

As of 2018, the division was comprised of nine board-certified endocrinologists, one instructor, nine nurse practitioners, 12 clinic nurses, six hormone stimulation testing nurses, 14 diabetes educators, five diabetes pump nurses, two nutritionists, two social workers, and one shared child family therapists. Note: many of the staff are part-time.