U.S. Medical Advisory Board

As a young man, J. Max Austin, Jr., M.D. left his home town of Wetumpka, Alabama to attend Georgia’s Emory University. Four years and a bachelor’s degree later he came back to his home state, earning a medical degree at the Medical College of Alabama in 1967. Except for a year out of the state for residency training and two years in the Air Force, Austin has been in Alabama ever since.

Dr. Austin has practiced gynecologic oncology and taught residents and fellowship students in this state throughout his career. Indeed, the state of Alabama-and treating its female cancer patients-are very dear to his heart.

Dr. Austin did his first year of residency in Atlanta in 1968-69, then he finished his OB/GYN residency and fellowship in Alabama. Having progressed along the academic ladder, he is now a full professor at the UASOM. He also founded Southern Gynecology, a private practice in Birmingham, and practiced there 22 years.

When Dr. Austin returned to the UASOM in 2000, the University of Alabama Health Services Foundation and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology established the J. Max Austin, Jr., M.D. Endowed Chair in Gynecologic Oncology in honor of his contributions to medicine and medical education in Alabama.

“There are some counties in Alabama that are equivalent to third-world countries in the death rates from cervical cancer, “he says. “This is tragic. We need to continue to educate, to teach the latest techniques in detection and diagnosis of gynecologic malignancies because many of them are potentially treatable if diagnosed early.”