COSAM Contributors
COSAM supporters contribute to medicine
COSAM has produced many outstanding alumni physicians, one
of which is Dr. Kirby I. Bland, chemistry and biochemistry ’64. Bland
is a native of Alabama and graduated from the University of Alabama
School of Medicine in 1968. He then conducted an internship
followed by one year of residency, both at the University of Florida
College of Medicine in the Department of Surgery. After his first
year of residency, Bland served in the U.S. Army from 1970 to 1972.
He was stationed at
Fort Benning, Ga., as
the officer-in-charge
of the Emergency
Department. When
this tour of duty
was completed, he
re-entered residency
training at the
University of Florida.
In his final year of
residency, he acted
as the administrative
chief resident. Bland
also completed two
fellowships: one at
Florida, where he was a
fellow in immunology;
and the other at the
University of Texas/M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute,
where he was a fellow in surgical oncology and a research associate.
Since 1977, when he completed his fellowship in surgical oncology,
Bland has accumulated numerous awards, honors, and academic
and hospital appointments including acting as past president of
the following: the Association of Academic Surgeons, the Society
of Surgical Oncology, the Society of Surgical Chairs, the Southern
Surgical Association, the Southeastern Surgical Congress, and the
American Surgical Association. Bland was also the former director of
the American Board of Colon and Rectal Surgery and the American
Board of Surgery. For the American College of Surgeons (ACS), he
sat on the board of governors as a representative for the American
Surgical Association, worked on the executive committee of the ACS
Board of Governors, and acted as both the vice-chair for the board of
governors and the first vice-president for ACS.
Bland has also held numerous faculty positions at the University
of Louisville, the University of Florida, Brown University, and the
University of Alabama at Birmingham. Additionally, Bland has been
competitively funded in cancer-related research since 1980 with an
emphasis on breast, colorectal, gastrointestinal malignancies and
metabolism, and has acted as principal investigator for several grants,
including grants from the National Institutes of Health and the
National Cancer Institute.
He has published more than 580 manuscripts and 30 textbooks
and periodicals, and is an active editorial board member of 22 surgical
and medical journals.
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Journey/2012
Currently, Bland works at UAB where he is the Fay Fletcher
Kerner Professor and Chair, Department of Surgery, surgeon-in-chief
at the University Hospital’s The Kirklin Clinic, and senior advisor to
the director of the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center.
His extensive resume represents more than 40 years of
dedication, drive, and determination. When asked of which career
accomplishments he is most proud, Bland responded, “My resume is
a body of lifetime work in multiple areas of surgical oncology. I am a
surgical scientist, which means I am a clinician, researcher and teacher.
All of these domains are important.”
Bland says that he felt well prepared for medical school after
graduating from Auburn University, and as a result, he and his wife,
Lynn Morton Bland, ’68 medical technology, established the Dr. Kirby
I. and Lynn Morton Bland Endowed Scholarship in the College of
Sciences and Mathematics.
Another successful physician and COSAM supporter who has
made significant contributions to the medical field is Dr. W. Lee
Warren. Warren is a neurosurgeon in Auburn and a COSAM adjunct
faculty member. He received his undergraduate degree in biochemistry
from Oklahoma Christian University and then attended medical
school at the University of Oklahoma. After Warren graduated from
medical school in 1995, he completed a neurosurgery residency in
Pittsburgh, Pa. Warren served in the U.S. Air Force until 2005 and,
during that time, he was deployed to Iraq where he worked at a
combat hospital for four months.
Warren wrote the
book, Called Out: A Brain
Surgeon Goes to War,
about his experience in
Iraq.
After Warren left the
Air Force in 2005, he
moved to Montgomery
where he practiced for
about a year before he
visited Auburn.
“My wife and I found
Auburn to be home
immediately, and I set up
a practice in 2006. It has
been going strong ever
since,” said Warren.
His practice, Auburn
Spine and Neurosurgery Center, is part of the Auburn MRI Research
Complex. Warren has another company, Warren Innovation, whic B