John W. Benton Endowed Chair in General Pediatrics Professor and Director
General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine

Carolyn Ashworth obtained her undergraduate degree at the University of Georgia in 1977, going on to receive her MD degree from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, Ga., in 1981. She finished a three year pediatric residency and added a year as Chief Resident in the program at MCG. She spent two year at Duke University Medical Center completing a Robert Wood Johnson Fellowship in Academic General Pediatrics. She returned to MCG in 1987 as an Assistant Professor in Pediatrics, remaining for four years.

Dr. Ashworth joined the faculty at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1991. She  became Division Director of the 5 person group in General Pediatrics in 1995.  The Adolescent Medicine group was combined with that of General Pediatrics later that year, and has grown to number 22 faculty, 2 fellows, and numerous trainees in multiple disciplines.  The clinical areas covered by this group are diverse, and include the General Pediatric Inpatient Service at Children’s, the UAB Newborn Nursery, the residents’ continuity clinic, the Adolescent Health Center, smaller clinics caring for developmentally challenged children, primary care practice, and community sites such as juvenile detention facilities.

 Dr. Ashworth is known as a clinician educator; she is very involved in bedside teaching in the Nursery and the continuity clinic, and substitutes in some of the developmental clinics as well as the detention facility. She is sought after as an advisor for pediatric residents and for medical students choosing pediatrics as a career. She participates in the educational activities of the department and has served on the departmental “Excellence in Pediatric Education Committee” since its inception, as well as on the Cunningham Scholarship Committee, a program that allows two medical students to work on research projects with faculty the summer after their first year of medical school. She has won several of the departmental awards for outstanding teaching and has served as chair of the subcommittee evaluating the learning environment for medical students as part of the current UAB LCME study. She participates fully in the activities of the department and has served in a variety of roles including strategic planning, promotion committees for faculty and residents, and recent committees tasked with improving patient flow.  She supports her colleagues’ efforts in research and has encouraged significant submissions such as the LEAH grant for training leaders in adolescent health.