Marsha Raulerson, MD, FAAP, a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, has practiced community pediatrics in Brewton, AL for 33 years. She is a graduate of the University of Florida College of Medicine, where she was elected to AOA and received the Luther W. Holloway Award for Excellent Performance in Child Health. Dr. Raulerson was a member of the Executive Board of the Alabama Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics for 15 years, serving as president from 2003 to 2005. Concurrently, she also served as a member of the Board of Censors of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama (MASA), the State Committee of Public Health, and the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners for 11 years, and was elected president of MASA in 2005. In addition, she has served as president of the University of Florida 

College of Medicine Alumni Association, VOICES for Alabama’s Children, and the Escambia County Medical Society. 

 

An avid advocate for health insurance coverage for children, Dr. Raulerson was on the original State Children’s Health Insurance Program commission in Alabama, leading the way toward establishing the first CHIP program in the country, created separately from Medicaid through a partnership with the Alabama Department of Public Health. In addition, she has been an advisor to Alabama Medicaid for many years on the Agency’s Medical Care Advisory Committee, the Physicians Task Force, and the primary case management program advisory committee since its inception. She also founded the Alabama Chapter-AAP Mental Health Coalition, partnering with the state mental health department to engage pediatricians in the Alabama Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Institute. She is also one of the original Regional Trainers for the Newborn Resuscitation Program in Alabama, and has served as an active member on the State Perinatal Advisory Committee, creating a spin-off Perinatal Drug Abuse Task Force to look into this burgeoning problem in Alabama.

 

Dr. Raulerson’s activities in her own community span 29 years of services as a volunteer pediatrician for the well-child clinics in Escambia and Conecuh counties. She is a charter member of the Coalition for a Healthier Escambia County and the Quality Assurance Advisory Committee for the local Department of Human Resources. She is a past president for the Southwest Alabama Perinatal Advisory Committee and has served on the local child death review committee and the Fetal and Infant Mortality review committee. For five years, she has worked with UAB and the Alabama Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation to provide psychiatric care to children in rural Alabama using telemedicine. Having worked on child abuse prevention for many years, Dr. Raulerson is also a member of the Southwest Alabama Abuse Network, providing telemedicine care for abused children. She was also instrumental in starting the dental clinic at the local health department in Brewton.

 

Dr. Raulerson was named Master Pediatrician by her peers in Alabama in 1992, National Child Advocate of the Year by Contemporary Pediatrics in 1995, and Alumna of Distinction by the University of Florida in 1997. Recipient of the Chairman’s Award for Lifetime Commitment to Improving the Health of Children from the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Pediatrics, she also received the AAP Community Pediatrician of the Year award in 2002. 

 

In 2003, she received the Elizabeth Jenice Riley Memorial Award for service to the children of Alabama. Dr Raulerson was the 2005 Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year for Brewton, Alabama, and in 2006, was honored with the Embrace Family Award for her advocacy for children with mental illness. In addition, she received the Rural Health Provider Exceptional Achievement Award by the Alabama Rural Health Association in 2007. In 2011, she was honored by the Alabama Chapter-American Academy of Pediatrics when the Marsha Raulerson Advocacy Award was created in her honor, an event marked by a proclamation by Alabama Governor Robert Bentley.

 

Dr. Raulerson is presently Chair of the AAP Committee on Federal Government Affairs, through which she has advocated and testified for children in Washington on numerous occasions, taking part in a number of Congressional visits on Medicaid and SCHIP funding and leading delegations on Capitol Hill. A CATCH (Community Access to Child Health) grantee herself, Dr. Raulerson encouraged many other Alabama pediatricians to get involved with CATCH during her tenure as State CATCH Coordinator before accepting the position of District X CATCH Facilitator in 2006. In addition, Dr. Raulerson is the Founder and Medical Director for the Alabama Chapter-AAP’s Reach Out and Read-Alabama program, a statewide coalition of more than 70 practices that provide early literacy advice to parents in the medical home using the national ROR model. 

 

Dr. Raulerson and her husband, Dan, a local nephrologist, have three grown children and four grandchildren and were foster parents for seven children. They have welcomed more than 30 medical students and residents into their home and practice over the years.