The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has awarded Cahaba Medical Care and the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Family and Community Medicine a grant in the amount of $640,000 to create a new Family Residency Program at UAB Hospital-Highlands. This grant will expand the existing partnership between UAB and Cahaba Medical Care. Combined, the Cahaba-UAB Family Medicine Residency program is now a 20-20-20 Graduate Medical Educational Program with four “campuses” or “tracks”.
UAB Hospital - Highlands
This residency program will help address the shortage of primary care physicians in Alabama, especially in rural Alabama, by training the next generation of family practice doctors and improving access to medical care for all Alabamians.
The residency program provides doctors with a community-based training program accredited and osteopathically recognized by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). Resident Physicians have completed medical school and have earned their medical degree. They practice medicine in a supervised setting for three years to complete their training in family medicine.
The Highlands track will include resident education and scholarship in key areas such digital health, genomics, health promotion (exercise, nutrition and mental health care), interprofessional care, cultural awareness, social determinants of health and population health.
B. Earl Salser, Jr., M.D., associate professor and director of medical student education in the UAB Department of Family and Community Medicine within the UAB Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine, will direct the Highlands program.
“We are thrilled to launch the Highlands Track within our UAB-Cahaba Family Medicine Residency and to welcome family medicine residents to UAB Hospital Highlands,” said Irfan Asif, M.D., professor and chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine, associate dean for primary care and rural health and director of UAB’s primary care service line. “Family medicine physicians have such an important role to play in improving health care access and outcomes in Alabama. The students who come to Highlands will be part of a rising generation of physicians meeting those needs.”
“UAB is a national leader as an innovative academic medical center, and Cahaba Medical Care has a decade-long proven track record of community-based training, placement, and retention of physicians in rural and underserved locations, said John B. Waits, M.D., Program Director and DIO, Cahaba-UAB Family Medicine Residency. “As a UAB alumni and clinical faculty member, I’m honored to have worked with UAB and Dr. Asif in this next chapter of the joint venture of UAB and Cahaba Medical Care.”
The Cahaba-UAB Highlands program will start its first class of residents in July 2022, as an important next step in addressing the primary care workforce shortages in Alabama. Learn more about the program and how to apply.