This year marks the 45th anniversary of University Medical Center.
During that time, we have grown from a single location in Tuscaloosa created to provide clinical education and training to future family medicine physicians, to multiple locations and outreach programs that provide primary and specialty care where it is needed most.
Through it all, we have remained steadfast to our mission: Caring for West Alabama.
Today, UMC provides primary and specialized health care in a number of West Alabama communities. The largest part of our practice is UMC in Tuscaloosa, which provides care in family medicine, pediatrics, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, geriatrics, psychiatry and behavioral medicine, neurology, endocrinology and sports medicine. We also offer services in social work and nutrition, as well as special programs for patients managing diabetes, asthma and high blood pressure.
When our patients require hospitalization, we have a team of hospitalist physicians who practice at DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa and who care for UMC patients from the time they are admitted to the time they are discharged. When those patients return home, UMC nurse practitioners, prior to Covid-19, made home visits to check on patients, assist with medications and ensure that follow-up doctor visits were scheduled. That work is still ongoing, but via telemedicine instead of in-person.
Five years ago, we opened UMC-Northport to better meet the primary health and prenatal care needs of that community. With a great need for these same services in Alabama’s smaller and rural communities, particularly in the Black Belt, we opened UMC-Demopolis three years ago. There, three physicians and a nurse practitioner practice full-time, providing family medicine, prenatal and pediatric care to Demopolis and surrounding communities.
Two UMC physicians provide weekly obstetric and gynecological care in Carrollton, in Pickens County, about 45 miles west of Tuscaloosa. Our provision of services there became even more critical when Pickens County Medical Center recently closed, leaving the county without a hospital and, as a result, with fewer physicians providing more specialized care.
Since April and with the help of UA’s Mobile Outreach Unit, we have brought Covid-19 screening and testing to Alabama Black Belt communities, which are enduring higher rates of the virus than other parts of the state. The region has long suffered from inadequate access to health-care services.
We are also providing mental health care services specifically for first responders and health-care professionals, providing support during these stressful times for those workers on the front lines of Covid-19.
University Medical Center will continue to look for ways to provide health care to people and to communities where it is most needed. It is our privilege to care for and serve West Alabama.
College of Community Health Sciences operates University Medical Center