2020 Master Pediatrician Award Presented to Dr. Paula Drummond from the Eastern Shore Children's Clinic

Submitted: Eastern Shore Children's Clinic

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Eastern Shore Children's Clinic's Dr. Paula Drummond was recognized with the 2020 Master Pediatrician Award during the 2019 AAP Awards Dinner in Birmingham, AL on September 28, 2019.

Dr. Paula Drummond was born in rural Union Springs, Alabama, delivered by the family doctor who was called in from hunting for the delivery. She spent her summers working on her grandparents' form.

She attended Florida State University and the University of Florida College of Medicine.

She completed her residency in pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital, where she met her husband Shawn. She spent one year on faculty at Texas Children's, Hospital before moving to the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay in 1994. She is currently a partner at Eastern Shore Children's Clinic in Fairhope.

Dr. Drummond has been an advocate for children and newborns through active involvement in her community hospital. She has initiated safety programs for pediatric patients by working with pharmacy and staff to develop pediatric and newborn crash carts, led staff in developing policy and procedure for sedation and high-risk events related to the pediatric patient population, and obtained funding to establish a simulation room to train hospital staff and physicians in NRP and PALS.

Dr. Drummond has served on the state Perinatal Advisory Committee since 2002. Additionally, she has served as medical director of pediatric hospice care, been a volunteer pediatrician for the children of migrant farm workers in her community and enjoyed being a preceptor for the pediatrics requirements for health core professional students.

She enjoys helping with the local special needs baseball team, boating, accompanying her son to INDY car races and going to college football games. Although not a hunter, she enjoys tagging along for the nature watching.

In her spare time, Dr. Drummond travels the state to visit her children away at college - Jimmy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Zane at Auburn University and Katie in her first year of medical school at the University of South Alabama. She looks forward to continuing to serve her community as a pediatrician in Fairhope.

She hopes to retire after saving up enough to get her own John Deere tractor and move back to the farm.