Advisory Board Profile: Georgia Cosmas

There is a Greek saying that states, “Sweet is the memory of past labor.” It’s an appropriate phrase for UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center Advisory Board member Georgia Cosmas, who has spent much of her life working to help people in need.            

The daughter of Greek immigrants, Mrs. Cosmas was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, along with her four sisters. Her parents had come to the United States for a better life and eventually settled in a community full of other immigrant families. “In our neighborhood, there were Greeks, Italians and Jewish people, living together, respecting each other,” Mrs. Cosmas recalls. “It was the church where my parents made sure we attended every service, that we would come together sharing a common faith and culture in fellowship.”            

The role of the church would have a significant impact on Mrs. Cosmas’s life. It would, in fact, lead her to the man she would end up marrying. Mrs. Cosmas was attending a youth conference in New Orleans for her church in May 1956 when she met Gus Cosmas. The two began seeing each other, became engaged in October and were married the following February. “We just clicked,” she says.

Employee, Patient, Advisor            
Mr. and Mrs. Cosmas soon moved to Birmingham, Mr. Cosmas’ hometown. Both would eventually work for UAB—he as an engineer and she as an administrator for Claude Bennett, M.D., the former chair of the Department of Medicine.             Mrs. Cosmas worked at UAB for 28 years and was named Employee of the Year in 1980. It was not long after receiving that honor, however, that she experienced another side of UAB.            

Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1981, Mrs. Cosmas was successfully treated by the Cancer Center’s founding director, John Durant, M.D. It was a fortuitous moment for Mrs. Cosmas to be a patient. A group of community volunteers had recognized the huge needs that cancer patients at UAB faced and began forming a group to address those needs—things that were very familiar to Mrs. Cosmas.

“There wasn’t anything there for cancer patients,” Mrs. Cosmas says. “No parking, no place to sit—I remember having to sit in the hall of Wallace Tumor Institute for chemotherapy.”            

In response to these conditions and under the guidance of the Cancer Center’s new director, Albert LoBuglio, M.D., these volunteers formed what would eventually become the Advisory Board, a group dedicated to improving the cancer patient experience at UAB. Mrs. Cosmas was one of the first to be asked to join.

“I was surprised when my friend Marcia Cohen who worked at the Cancer Center at the time called saying they wanted me as a member,” Mrs. Cosmas says. “I remember thinking, ‘They want me?’”  

Compassion for the Community            
The board began making improvements at the Cancer Center, and Mrs. Cosmas was an active participant, eventually serving as secretary/treasurer as well as chair of the patient and family services committee. She helped decorate the clinics and also visited with patients, speaking to them about her own experience with breast cancer. “The board had good times together, great memories. It was like a big family,” she says. “My love is the patient and family services.”            

Mrs. Cosmas continued working at UAB, eventually retiring in 1996. In addition to her work with the Advisory Board, she has been extremely active in her church, where she is a member of the Ladies Philoptochos Society, which translates to “friend of the poor” and has long been a supporter of UAB. She and Mr. Cosmas have been married for 52 years and have two children and three grandchildren.

Though many years have passed since her Memphis childhood, the emphasis on family and community togetherness remains important to Mrs. Cosmas. “Family and church are first for me,” she says. But next in line is the Cancer Center. “I love UAB. I loved working there, and I love what the Cancer Center did for me. If I were to get sick, UAB is the only place I would want to be.”