PIKEVILLE, Ky. –   Pike County and eastern Kentucky has lost an icon in healthcare education.  Dr. Mary Pauline Fox, 87, died Thursday morning at her home in Pikeville.  Her list of accomplishments and contributions to the region are many.  She was Director of the Pike County Health Department from 1970-1993.  She retired only after she was successful in securing funding for the current health department facility in the Pikeville riverfill.  Dr. Fox earned her Doctor of Medicine from the University of Louisville in 1956, one of five females in a class of 100.  From 1956 through 1957, she served a rotating internship at Good Samaritan Hospital in Lexington before joining the private practice of Dr. Edward S. Wilson in Pineville.  During this time, she also served as health officer for the Leslie, Perry, and Knott County health departments.

In 1959, she was appointed by the Kentucky Department of Health as regional director for 20 Eastern Kentucky counties, a post she held until 1966, when she accepted the position of assistant medical director at Frontier Nursing Service in Hyden. At the same time, she was also acting medical director for the Health Program of the Leslie County Office of Economic Opportunity.  She then moved to Floyd County to work with Dr. Russell Hall as Assistant Medical Director of the Floyd County Health Department, and did so until 1970 when she was named Health Officer of the Pike County Health Department.  

In 1986 she was a member of the first public health group in the United States invited to China, a trip that had to be sanctioned by the US Department of State.  She spent much of her retirement as a sought-after speaker, lecturing throughout the state on topics such as child abuse, hypertension, death and dying, sexually transmitted diseases, rape, substance abuse, spouse abuse, family planning, and AIDS.

Funeral arrangements are incomplete, and will be announced by JW Call and Son Funeral Home of Pikeville.