Groesbeck Parham, MD is a U.S. board-certified gynecologic oncologist whose career embodies the use of medicine as an instrument for social justice. Raised during the height of the American Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Parham was jailed at age fifteen for attempting to integrate the Alabama Theatre and again for participating in Birmingham, Alabama’s “Children’s Brigade.” These formative experiences shaped a lifelong commitment to equity, dignity, and service to underserved communities.

Dr. Parham earned his BA in Sociology and Anthropology from Oberlin College and his MD from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He completed residency training in Obstetrics and Gynecology at UAB, pursued advanced training in urogynecology in London and Sudan, and completed a fellowship in Gynecologic Oncology at the University of California, Irvine.

With more than three decades of leadership in academic medicine and global women’s health, Dr. Parham is Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Zambia, based at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka. Since relocating full-time to Zambia in 2005, he has led Africa’s first large-scale public-sector cervical cancer prevention program integrated with HIV care—the Cervical Cancer Prevention Program in Zambia. Now adopted by the Zambian government, the program has screened more than 1.9 million women and trained over 500 health professionals from 15 African countries and China.

Building on this foundation, his team has implemented innovative, primary-care–based models that integrate breast care, HIV, and HPV services, successfully down-staging breast cancer and strengthening health systems. His work exemplifies how screening programs can build systems, bend structures, and transform people.

Dr. Parham currently serves as Senior Clinical Expert in the Office of the Director-General of the World Health Organization. In that position he helped craft the world’s first global strategy to eliminate a cancer—the WHO Global Strategy to Accelerate the Elimination of Cervical Cancer—unanimously adopted by 178 nations of the World Health Assembly in 2022.

From a teenager jailed for demanding human rights in the American Deep South to a physician leading a global movement, Dr. Parham’s life reflects a singular pursuit: advancing justice through medicine.