Special to The Times
The American Cancer Society recognized UAB’s Dr. Mona Fouad with the American Cancer Society St. George National Award.
The St. George National Award is the Society’s most prestigious Division volunteer honor. It is presented to outstanding community volunteers in recognition of their distinguished service in achieving the American Cancer Society’s strategic goals.
The award was presented during a ceremony last month in Birmingham at the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Fouad is one of 22 individuals from across the country who received the award for extraordinary service to the community in support of the Society’s mission to save lives and end the pain and suffering of cancer.
Recipients were chosen based on their continuous leadership, commitment, and dedication to key initiatives in more than one area of fundraising, mission delivery, patient support, legislative advocacy, and special event engagement.
“Dr. Fouad has given an impressive amount of time and passion to the American Cancer Society’s efforts to eliminate disparity in screening and to increase lay navigation,” said Diana Diaz, chair, Mid-South Division Board of Directors.
The work of Dr. Fouad, through the Deep South Network for Cancer Control, addresses the issues of navigation, disparity and access to care in an area of the country where disparity in healthcare and social determinants of health are at the greatest levels — the South.
During her 15-plus year work with Dr. Ed Partridge, past St. George Award winner, they have successfully eliminated the disparity in breast cancer screening between Medicare African American and Caucasian populations in the Black Belt of Alabama. Their work is also impacting the Mississippi Delta.
Fouad shares her findings with the American Cancer Society and has led the way for the Society in the field of navigation. When the American Cancer Society decided to adapt the Deep South Network breast cancer lay navigation model with volunteers, Fouad helped to adapt training materials, model, and evaluation tools. The program has been tremendously successful in Mid-South for more than seven years and has resulted in the education of tens of thousands of women in the disparate population throughout seven locations in our division, and the navigation of thousands of women to breast cancer screening. The American Cancer Society credits the work of Fouad and the Deep South Network with much of the progress made by the American Cancer Society in the field of lay navigation in prevention and screening.
