Name John M. Packard Alabama Regional Medical Program Records and Files
Dates 1967-1991 (bulk 1969-1974)
Extent 4.5 cubic feet
Historical Note On October 9, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law legislation which provided funding for regional medical programs (RMP) that would plan and operate heart, stroke, and cancer programs throughout the country. Officials in Alabama and at the Medical Center of The University of Alabama immediately began working on a grant for the state’s RMP. The $881,000 grant was approved and funded effective January 1, 1967, with the Medical Center serving as the grantee institution. In July 1967 Dr. Benjamin Wells was appointed first director of the new Alabama Regional Medical Program (ARMP). An emergency supplemental grant was awarded to the Alabama program in July 1968, and that September the program received a $358,000 renewal grant. In November 1968 Dr. John M. Packard, a physician in Pensacola, Florida, was appointed first executive director of the ARMP. The following year, Dr. Packard was also appointed community health services assistant to the UAB vice president for Health Affairs and associate dean for community health affairs to the dean of the Medical College of Alabama. In 1973 President Richard Nixon presented a budget to the Congress which called for the elimination of the nation’s RMPs; however, Congress funded the programs through the end of 1976. During the national budgetary battles, Dr. Packard resigned his ARMP and UAB positions to become associate dean at the College of Community Health Sciences in Tuscaloosa. Packard was eventually succeeded as executive director by Dr. Margaret S. Klapper, the associate dean for Continuing Medical Education in UAB’s School of Medicine. Dr. Klapper oversaw the elimination of the Federal funding, the demise of the program’s activities, and the final closure of the Alabama Regional Medical Program in October 1976.
Scope & Contents Includes correspondence, grant, reports, reprints, clippings, and pamphlets.
Arrangement Organized into three series: 1. Director’s Records and Files; 2. Grants and Reports; and 3. Publications and Pamphlets.
Accession Number A96-24
Provenance These materials were donated by Dr. John M. Packard in November 1996.
Finding aid Printed descriptive guide by Tim L. Pennycuff available in repository.
Access Points Alabama Regional Medical Program.
Health planning z Alabama.
Hill, S. Richardson, d b. 1923.
Hospital and community z Alabama.
Klapper, Margaret Strange, d b. 1914.
Medical laws and legislation.
Packard, John M., d b. 1920.
Public health.
University of Alabama. b Medical Center.
University of Alabama in Birmingham. b Medical College of Alabama.
Wallace, George C., q (George Corley), d b. 1919.
Document Types Clippings.
Correspondence.
Grants.
Pamphlets.
Reprints.
Location Manuscript Stacks
Related Series Series 2.3.1, Alabama Regional Medical Program Files, 1973-1976
Series 2.4.1, Alabama Regional Medical Program Files, 1972-1976
MC26, S. Richardson Hill Videotape Collection (includes the tape of a filmed presentation by Dr. Packard to the National Library of Medicine on December 6, 1991, at a national meeting on regional medical programs)
Physical Condition These materials have been placed in acid free folders and acid free boxes. Metal fasteners have been removed, metal staples have not. Some of the grants and reports have been removed from their original ring binders and have been placed in acid-free folders.
This page created 1999 and last updated on 27 November 2007.
Copyright: The University of Alabama Board of Trustees.