Beverly VonDer Pool, M.D.

Beverly VonDer Pool, M.D., has enjoyed a career has spanned both coasts and four decades, but her primary goal – improving health for women and families through the practice of compassionate, evidence-based family medicine – has never wavered. She retired at the end of 2021 and colleagues say her legacy stretches from the clinic to the classroom and beyond.

“Dr. VonDer Pool is a pioneer in family medicine. She has been a part of the long history of our department and her impact can be felt through the generations of family physicians that she has trained, as well as the patients who have been cared for by her and those she has educated along the way,” said Irfan Asif, M.D., professor and chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine and associate dean from primary care and rural health. “In particular, she has had tremendous influence on how we provide women’s health at UAB. We appreciate all that Dr. VonDer Pool has done for us.”

VonDer Pool, an associate professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine who has most recently practiced at the UAB Highlands Family Medicine clinic, joined UAB in 1992 as the Family-Centered Maternal Care director, a role she held in 2003. In that role, with the help of more than $1 million in training grants and federal Healthy Start grants, VonDer Pool supervised four midwives, many family medicine residents and UAB medical students in the delivery of hundreds of babies. She also joined UAB midwives in providing prenatal and gynecology care to women in Birmingham’s underserved West End, before the West End Health Center was created. In addition, VonDer Pool worked with UAB Maternal-Fetal Medicine, using grant funding from rural health initiatives, to train four family medicine doctors to provide advanced surgical maternity care to rural counties in Alabama.

From 1995 to 2003, VonDer Pool also served as the director of family medicine predoctoral programs at UAB. She helped lead UAB’s Minority Medical Education Program from 1993 to 1999 and was also a board advisor and mentor at UAB for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation’s largest philanthropy dedicated solely to health. From 1995-2020, VonDer Pool served annual as director, national adviser and faculty for Advanced Life Support workshops, training Alabama family medicine residents, nurses and physicians for obstetrics emergencies.

VonDer Pool served as the Obstetrics, Women’s and Home Bound Patient Director at Ascension St. Vincent’s East Family Medicine from 2003 to 2020 before returning to the UAB Department of Family Medicine in 2020. Despite her busy teaching, practice and administrative abilities, she continued to make time for house calls on her way home – a rarity in health care today.

VonDer Pool earned her medical degree from the University of California at San Francisco and completed her residency in 1982 at the University of Washington.

VonDer Pool has been repeatedly honored for her work as a physician and as an educator. Among numerous awards, she won an Argus Award, given by UAB medical students to the faculty members and mentors who made particularly powerful contributions to their education. In addition, in 2020, she received a Lifetime Faculty Teaching Award.

She was a member of the American Academy of Family Physicians, the Society for Teachers of Family Medicine and the Alabama Academy of Family Medicine Physicians. She also served on numerous committees and task forces at UAB, including the School of Medicine Admissions Committee Clinical Council, the Student Health Services Task Force, the Women’s Primary Care Resident Focus Group, the Clinical Education Task Force, the Clinical Sciences Subcommittee, the Clinical Academic Committee, the Patient/Family Education Committee, the Professional Rural Leaders Pipeline Committee, OB Clinical Leadership team, and the VIVA UAB Medicaid Obstetrics Quality Assurance Committee.

From 2011 to 2020, VonDer Pool was also a Birmingham Community Board Member for Birth Well Partners, a nonprofit organization that trains community doulas to provide one-on-one support to under-resourced pregnant people in central Alabama.

Fittingly, a phone call from a patient helped VonDer Pool reflect on her career as she neared retirement. On Nov. 7, she received a call from a woman she had diagnosed with a rare obstetric disorder decades earlier. VonDer Pool had helped the woman safely deliver her son, and the woman was calling to thank her again. Her son had just turned 27 that day.

VonDer Pool said she is thankful for “a great family medicine career of service, receiving more joy and gratification from my patients and learners than I ever gave them.”

Erin DeLaney, M.D., assistant professor, vice chair of clinical affairs and quality, medical director of UAB Family and Community Medicine – Highlands, where VonDer Pool recently practiced, said her legacy will continue for years to come.

“Dr. VonDer Pool has made a significant contribution to the field of family medicine through her decorated career. She is a rare gem in primary care – practicing full-spectrum family medicine with an emphasis on women’s health and obstetrics. Not only did she provide her patients with genuine and excellent care she was able to teach the next generation of primary care physicians through her superb knowledge and art. Her legacy will live on through the lives of all those she met and cared for – patients, colleagues, students, residents and friends. Few will be missed as much as Dr. Beverly VonDer Pool.”