Russ Fine
Phillip R. "Russ" Fine is the director of the Injury Control Research Center at UAB and half of the controversial radio talk-show team Russ and Dee Fine.
Fine is a graduate of Southern Illinois University and interned at the University of Missouri and University of Oklahoma Medical Centers. He spent time as a crash site investigator for the Federal Aviation Administration and directed a statewide pediatric lead-poisoning program for the Illinois Department of Public Health.
He was recruited to UAB in 1975 by the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine. He was tenured in 1983 and directed research and scientific affairs for that department, for the Medical Rehabilitation Research and Training Center in Spinal Cord Dysfunction, and co-directed UAB's National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center.
In 1988 he was appointed a professor of medicine in the UAB School of Medicine's Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology with additional appointments to the Department of Health Care Organization and Policy in the UAB School of Public Health.
Among Fine's numerous professional affiliations are a fellowship in the American College of Epidemiology, and membership in the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine, the World Federation of Neurology, and the New York Academy of Sciences.
Along with his wife, Fine co-founded the Alabama chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and headed former Governor George Wallace's Task Force on Drunk Driving. He was president of the Jefferson County Mothers Against Drunk Driving from 1984 to 1986.
Russ and Dee began co-hosting a radio talk show in 1986, which became a hit on WERC-AM when they took over the morning slot from John Ed Willoughby and Doug Layton. The politically-themed talk show with a right-wing, anti-government slant has often been controversial and the pair have been fired from more than one station. They have championed the political career of former judge Roy Moore, vociferously opposed illegal immigration, and called for a boycott of Aruba in the midst of the Natalee Holloway investigation. From 2002 until September 2006, they were heard weekday mornings on WYDE-FM.
A 1993 USA Network television movie, The Switch depicts an event in which a man (played by Gary Cole) becomes paralyzed after a motorcycle accident and befriends Fine (Craig T. Nelson), who provides the suicidal patient with a mouth-operated switch he could use to terminate his life. The man chooses instead to fight to preserve his life. Beverly D'Angelo portrays Dee in a small, uncredited performance.
External links
- Russ Fine bio at UAB Medicine
- Russ and Dee online website
- The Switch at the internet movie database