Growing up in Jasper near the Episcopal Diocese’s Camp McDowell, pediatric cardiologist Ed Colvin developed an early love for the environment and working with children. “I practically grew up at the camp, where I enjoyed the woods and the water and came to have a deeper appreciation for God’s creation,” he said. At the tender age of seven, he volunteered to serve coffee to senior men’s Bible studies. Later, he became a camper and then a counselor in his teen years. “I really liked working with children, so deciding on pediatrics in med school was a natural fit.”
In 1973, he graduated from Sewanee: The University of the South, married Memily Rogers and began medical school at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). By the time he completed his pediatric residency at UAB, he had formed a lifelong kinship with his teacher and mentor, Dr. Mac Bargeron, a pioneer in cardiac catheterization, who encouraged him to attend Baylor College of Medicine/Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston for his cardiology fellowship. Recruited back by Bargeron, Colvin became the second pediatric cardiologist in Birmingham, doubling the size of the department at the Children’s Hospital of Alabama.
The new state-of-the-art Women’s and Infants’ Facility (WIF) at UAB, and the adjacent new Children’s Hospital — part of the Children’s Health System modernization and expansion — will allow Colvin to recruit more physicians for the Bargeron Division of Pediatric Cardiology, which now has seven of Alabama’s 13 pediatric cardiologists.
“I am excited about the WIF and the new Children’s Hospital,” said Colvin. “Together, they will be a tremendous resource for the community. We’ll have a Heart Center in the middle of Children’s Hospital with places for parents to stay close to their children. Since UAB is a major regional center for high-risk babies, the adjoining WIF will allow new mothers to be close to their sick babies once they’re born.”
“We’re able to make a big difference for children born with congenital heart disease, and I enjoy the long-term relationships with them over the course of their lifetimes,” added Colvin. “When you practice medicine in the same place for such a long time, the patients, the staff and my colleagues become an extended family. We even have some patients who are now med students at UAB, and that’s very rewarding.” Colvin has also donated professional services to Heart to Heart International, a non-profit organization that helps children in developing countries suffering from congenital heart disease.
While making people healthy is his vocation, his avocation is helping create and maintain a healthy environment. “When I was at Sewanee, I developed a growing awareness of man’s actions on our environment and our interdependence with nature,” said Colvin. Previously a board member for the Alabama River Alliance, he’s currently on the board of the Alabama chapter of the Nature Conservancy, and he and Memily are members of the Cahaba River Society.
Last year, they purchased Bargeron’s home on 26 acres on the Cahaba River from his widow, and proceeded to pack, move and renovate in a way that would be least harmful to the environment. Leaving their previous home of 24 years, they recycled and donated everything they could to downsize, and they used minimal and recyclable packing materials. During the renovation, they donated the old kitchen cabinets and appliances to a Black Belt charity, maintained the same footprint of the original house, installed a natural gas tankless water heater and were the first in Birmingham to use recycled newspaper (NuWool) as insulation. Colvin is quick to credit their three grown children for increasing his and his wife’s ecological awareness and activism. “When they were young, they started recycling, and our interest increased greatly from that point,” he said. “We’re very proud of them.”
Their oldest son, Clay, is an artist whose wife, Caroline, is a pediatric resident at UAB. Clay and Caroline’s three-year-old son, Gus, is Colvin’s first grandchild. Clay’s younger brother, Ben, is an environmental educator at the North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville and is engaged. The Colvins’ daughter, Emily, had an environmentally green wedding in June at the family’s Smyer Lake house. She and her new husband, Patrick Haas, are both in medical school at the University of Cincinnati.
Reflecting on his livelihood and his hobbies, he said, “I consider taking care of the environment good stewardship. My interest grows out of an understanding of creation and a reverence for life and God’s gifts to us.”
August 2008
