The UAB HSF Robert B. Adams Cytology Laboratory opened recently in Montgomery, Alabama, as part of the Department of Pathology’s Community Practice Pathology Program (CPPP). This laboratory space was donated by the Adams family and renovated by the Department of Pathology. Its opening has been seven years in the making.
The Adams Lab will process 5,000-6,000 Pap smears and 1,500 non-gynecological cytology specimens per year from Baptist Health that had previously been sent to UAB Hospital’s main campus. Processing these specimens locally will majorly decrease turnaround time and give more timely answers to local clinicians and patients.
The lab is staffed by Carrie Reid, M.D., Medical Director, QueShaundra Fowler, Lab Supervisor, Sonya Griffin, Cytotechnologist, and Johncella Bates, Specimen Preparation Technician.
“I’m so thankful to everyone who has contributed to the planning, licensing and staffing of the lab,” said Reid. “We’re looking forward to serving and growing alongside this community.”
Imogene Adams, wife to the late Dr. Robert Adams, was present at the ceremony to cut the ribbon after remarks were delivered by Water Bell, M.D., Director, CPPP, Dr. Carrie Reid, and Cristina Magi-Galluzzi, M.D., Ph.D., Robert and Ruth Anderson Endowed Chair. Nearly 30 attendees were present from UAB, Baptist Health, the Adams family and the board of the Robert B. Adams Foundation.
“It was an honor that Mrs. Adams, who recently turned 94, was with us to celebrate the opening of the laboratory and cut the ribbon in honor of her late husband, Dr. Robert Adams,” Bell said. “I don’t believe the ceremony could have gone any better.”
Dr. Adams, a native of Birmingham, earned his bachelor’s degrees in biology and chemistry from Birmingham–Southern College in 1950 and, after earning his medical degree from the Medical College of Alabama, now the UAB Heersink School of Medicine, did a rotating internship from 1956 to 1957 at Lloyd Nolan Hospital in Fairfield, Alabama. He completed residency training in 1959 at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, while serving with the U.S. Army at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, from 1959 to 1961; and then returned to the Medical College of Alabama where he was an instructor from 1961 through 1964, serving first as Assistant Director of Anatomic Pathology and later as Associate Director of Surgical Pathology, all while serving as the Medical Director of the Blood Bank at University Hospital. Dr. Adams entered the private practice of pathology in Montgomery, Alabama, being the first pathologist at the new Montgomery Baptist Hospital, continuing in private practice for 35 years.
In 1965, he established the Adams and Bridger Pathology Laboratory, and in 1972, he established the Alabama Reference Laboratory, which he left private practice to manage in 1990. When Alabama Reference Laboratory was sold to Laboratory Corporation of America in 2000, Dr. Adams accepted a position as Medical Director of Auburn University at Montgomery’s (AUM) Division of Clinical Laboratory Sciences. Throughout his career, Dr. Adams was devoted to providing high quality laboratory service as well as the education of pathologists and laboratory personnel.
Since 2003, the Adams Education Fund has provided grant support for pathology residents at UAB. Dr. Adams served on the University of Alabama Medical Alumni Association (MAA) board of directors from 1988 until 1995 and as its president from 1993 through 1995, serving as class chair for his reunion years, and receiving the Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2003. He made significant contributions to the MAA’s Building Fund, the Perpetuity Fund, the Jimmy Beard Endowed Memorial Scholarship Fund, and the MAA Student Assistance Fund. From 1991 until 1993, Dr. Adams also served as president of the Caduceus Club, which provides funds for School of Medicine student travel.
In 2023, Alexander “Craig” Mackinnon, M.D., Ph.D., Division Director, Genomic Diagnostics and Bioinformatics, and Executive Vice Chair, was named the Robert B. Adams Endowed Professor in Pathology. He is the second individual to hold this endowment, established in 2014. The first holder was X. Long Zheng, M.D., Ph.D., former director, Division of Laboratory Medicine.
