Renowned Pediatric Pathologist Establishes Education Fund

The Department of Pathology congratulates ONA MARIE FAYE-PETERSEN, M.D., Professor, Anatomic Pathology, on her retirement after nearly three decades of research and teaching in the UAB Department of Pathology. Dr. Faye-Petersen’s legacy will continue in the establishment of two funds in support of education. The first, set up in 2012, is a multidisciplinary teaching award for UAB Pathology residents and fellows. This award recognizes residents who demonstrate an outstanding commitment to educating fellow trainees in pathology and other medical disciplines, as well as UAB medical students, about pathology and its many important roles in improving patient care and outcomes. The second, the Ona FayePetersen Educational Support Fund established in 2019, supports trainees’ attendance of workshops and symposia at national and international pathology and multidisciplinary medical meetings. “I very much believe in paying things forward, and this is one way to do that,” says FayePetersen, who started as a as a full-time practicing pediatric pathologist in 1987. “Despite the fact that my personal area of interest is focused, I think it’s crucial that trainees become exposed to and learn about the greatest variety of subjects that are going to be important to them in their immediate and distant future, so that they feel inspired to continue to learn.” One way to do that, she says, is to provide trainees many opportunities to attend high quality, multidisciplinary conferences in which pathology plays an important role. “Providing trainees additional funds during a time in their careers when they’re generally more financially limited is key,” she says. Dr. Faye-Petersen’s official career at UAB began in January 1992 when she joined the Department of Pathology as an assistant professor, specializing in PerinatalPediatric Pathology. Over the next 28 years, she became a world-renowned expert in this specialty. Teaching has been a part of Dr. Faye-Petersen’s work since she started at UAB, leading courses in the University of Alabama School of Medicine that ranged in topic from “freshman fundamentals” to autopsy electives, and gynecology, genitourinary and endocrinology modules, as well as leading mentorships in perinatal pathology. She won the UAB School of Medicine’s Argus honors teaching award and has been nominated multiple times for the UAB President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Joint Health Sciences. In 2007 Dr. Faye-Petersen was named the Outstanding Woman UAB Faculty Member, a UAB campus-wide honor that accepts nominations from all UAB schools. On the clinical side, Dr. FayePetersen served as Group Leader for perinatal pathology at the UAB SOM since the early 1990s. She established the Microdissection Laboratory at UAB Hospital in 1995 as a referral and diagnostic lab for perinatal pathology. Today, it processes about 2,500 specimens annually. Through her work in the MDL, Dr. Faye-Petersen has become a highly respected and valuable resource for UAB faculty and regional private practice obstetricians. She established the protocols for and performed or supervised the vast majority of perinatal autopsies until Fall 2018. Ona Marie Faye-Petersen, MD

In 1997, Dr. Faye-Petersen established a research and teaching registry of over 650 cases to support intra- and extra-institutional multidisciplinary tissue research and education in cardiovascular malformations. She was a consulting pathologist with Children’s Hospital of Alabama for many years, and an associate scientist with the Center for Metabolic Bone Disease. From 1992 to 2018, she served as the only pathology member of the UAB Perinatal Morbidity and Mortality Committee.

Throughout her career, FayePetersen has been a key figure in the Society for Pediatric Pathology (SPP). She twice received the Distinguished Colleague Award for her leadership in perinatal pathology and her service as CONTINUED ON PAGE 11