Alice A. Tolbert Coombs, M.D., F.C.C.P.
Dr. Coombs is a critical care specialist at South Shore Hospital and an anesthesiologist with South Shore Anesthesia Associates. A member of the Massachusetts Medical Society since 1990, Dr. Coombs has long been active in organized medicine. For the last three years, she has served as President-Elect, Vice-President, and Secretary-Treasurer of the Society, respectively, and has been a member of its Board of Trustees and House of Delegates.
She is a member of the American Medical Association's Commission to Eliminate Healthcare Disparities. She is former Vice Chair of the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine's Patient Care Assessment Committee, a former member of the Massachusetts State Commission to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Healthcare Disparities, and a past chair of the Massachusetts Medical Society's Committee on Ethnic Diversity. She was also a member of the Massachusetts Special Commission on the Health Care Payment System, established to evaluate the health care payment system and recommend reforms that will provide incentives for cost-effective and patient-centered care.
She has served on the Medical Society's committees on Public Health, Managed Care, Recognition Awards, and Leadership Development. She is a past president of the Norfolk South District Medical Society, one of 20 district groups that comprise the statewide organization and a former chair of the Ethics Committee at South Shore Hospital.
In 2005, she received the Society's Henry Ingersoll Bowditch Award of Excellence in Public Health, an annual award given to a physician who demonstrates creativity, commendable citizenship, initiative, innovation and leadership in the public health and advocacy fields. One of her major public health activities for several years has been her annual anti-smoking program for South Shore youth, "Smoking-Don't Go There," an adaptation of a program produced by the American College of Chest Physicians. Dr. Coombs developed the program in 1999.
She is also a driving force behind the American Medical Association's Doctors Back to School Program, which brings physicians into elementary, middle, and high schools across the country to interest young men and women, particularly in minority communities, in health care careers.
A native of Compton, California and a graduate of Compton High School, Dr. Coombs received her medical degree from the UCLA School of Medicine. She is board-certified in the medical specialties of internal medicine, anesthesiology, and critical care. She is a diplomat of the National Board of Medical Examiners and a Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians. She resides in Sharon.
