Letter from a Friend
A message from Dr. Richard Friend, Dean of the College of Community Health Sciences
On June 25, we celebrated the graduation of our 2023 class of resident physicians. These 16 young doctors, now specialists in family medicine, leave us to begin inpatient and outpatient practice in Alabama, as well as in Georgia, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, California and Canada.
And a new class of residents begins with The University of Alabama Tuscaloosa Family Medicine Residency Program, which is operated by UA’s College of Community Health Sciences. The College also operates University Medical Center, so our patients will have opportunities to be cared for by these young doctors, who are beginning their own specialty training in family medicine.
In addition to being the largest multi-specialty community medical practice in West Alabama with six locations and nearly 90,000 patient visits in 2022, UMC is also a teaching facility. We are glad to have these new resident physicians – interns, as they are called in their first year of the three-year residency – learning alongside our own UMC doctors. All of our residents, including our second- and third-year residents, are bright and compassionate medical school graduates who keep us on our toes, and who keep our patients well and healthy.
The Tuscaloosa Family Medicine Residency is one of the oldest and largest in the United States. A total of 48 residents are in the program each year (16 for each of the three years). As a UMC patient, you have likely been cared for by a resident, along with a UMC physician.
Since the residency graduated its first resident in 1975, a total of 573 family medicine physicians have graduated from the program. More than half are practicing in Alabama, and nearly half of them in rural communities. With a mission similar to that of CCHS and UMC, the residency prepares medical school graduates to practice family medicine, particularly in small, rural communities where there is a critical shortage of doctors.
According to the Alabama Department of Public Health, eight rural Alabama counties don’t have a hospital; 35 of the state’s rural communities don’t provide labor and delivery service; and the mortality rate for rural Alabamians is more than 10% higher than for urban residents.
We are working to change those statistics, and one way is by preparing doctors to practice family medicine in Alabama’s small, rural communities. We are proud of the work we are doing in that regard, and in the number of our residency graduates who choose to practice in the state’s rural areas.
Know that when one of our resident physicians cares for you at UMC, you are also helping to fulfill our mission, and we are grateful for that. Together, we are improving the health of Alabama communities.
The College of Community Health Sciences operates University Medical Center, the UA Student Health Center and Pharmacy, Brewer-Porch Children’s Center and Capstone Hospitalist Group.