Written by: Brit Blalock
Media contact: Alicia Rohan
Irfan M. Asif, M.D., has been named the new chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Asif is a primary care physician who specializes in sports and exercise medicine.
He most recently served as the vice chair of Academics and Research in the Department of Family Medicine and as the Sports Medicine Fellowship director at the Greenville Health System and the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville. As chair, he says, he hopes to expand the department’s educational and care opportunities.
“In my new role, I hope to facilitate tremendous growth,” Asif said. “This includes providing excellence in patient care, education and research. Specifically, our department will seek new ways to prevent and treat diseases for the patients we serve, aim to develop new educational experiences for learners, including a UAB residency in Family Medicine, and grow opportunities for nationally recognized primary care research in population health using the principles of lifestyle and exercise medicine.”
Asif’s research explores several domains of sports cardiology, and also the prevention and treatment of disease through lifestyle and exercise medicine. He currently serves on the board of directors for the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine and is an associate editor for the journals Sports Health and the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
“We’re anticipating outstanding progress in the department after Dr. Asif joins us,” said Selwyn M. Vickers, M.D., senior vice president for Medicine and dean of the School of Medicine. “He has an excellent vision for the future, and I believe we can provide him with the tools he needs to take our patient care, research and leadership in the field to the next level of success.”
Asif earned his M.D. in 2007 at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. He completed his family medicine residency at the University of Washington with a concentration in sports medicine.
Asif will begin his new role at UAB on Sept. 15.