Residency is an important period of your post graduate training. The next four years will mold you into a remarkable Physiatrist. Selecting the best-fit residency program for life-long learning will be key to your future success.
While healthcare rapidly changes year to year, the mission and values of our residency program remains untouched. The UAB Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation residency program is a four-year categorical program. Our intern year provides strong education and experiences in internal medicine and other specialties that will prepare the residents to care for the breadth of patients and disorders that they will encounter in PM&R. We’ve focused on a diverse didactic curriculum that features hands-on learning, simulation, and case-based discussions. Residents partake in a wide range of inpatient and outpatient clinical rotations structured to promote advancing responsibility in training and autonomy. They begin making patient care decisions early in their training while guided by highly skilled faculty members.
Our training program admits four residents from different backgrounds and characteristics each year with a total of 16 residents in our program. Our program size allows our faculty to know each of our residents on a personal and professional level which promotes a strong sense of collegiality, community, and responsibility. Each faculty member is committed to providing exceptional training for each of our residents. Residents are selected based on their academic record, extracurricular activities, and leadership qualities. Our residents encompass all of these qualities, and they are truly our program’s greatest assets.
The comprehensive exposure offered by our program allows our graduates to have the flexibility to pursue their interests upon completion of training, whether that is general PM&R (in either an academic or private practice setting) or pursuing a fellowship in a PM&R subspecialty.
Flip through our Residency Program booklet and learn more about our residents, leadership, and everything UAB and Birmingham have to offer.
Meet our Program Directors
Dale Colorado, D.O., MPH
Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Education, Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation
Program Director, PM&R Residency
Medical Director, Sports and Musculoskeletal Medicine
Michelle Turnley, M.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation
Medical Director, Worker’s Compensation Division at The Workplace
Associate Program Director/GME Training
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Letter from the Directors
Dear Prospective Applicant,
There is no medical specialty in which your relationship with your patients will be more rewarding, or the need for your skill any greater. Opportunities for private patient care and/or academic appointments in physical medicine and rehabilitation are abundant, and the demand for physicians who have specialized in this area is growing much faster than the supply of trained specialists.
The UAB Department of PM&R is recognized nationally for its comprehensive rehabilitation programs. This site is designed to acquaint you with our facilities and programs and introduces you briefly to the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the city of Birmingham.
The hub of activities for the Department of PM&R is the Spain Rehabilitation Center. This outstanding facility is an integral part of UAB Hospital and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
This provides clinical training leading to certification in the specialty of physical medicine and rehabilitation (physiatry). The primary emphasis of the program is to provide an individualized educational experience for residents who wish to become outstanding physicians in the rewarding field of physical medicine and rehabilitation. With a broad spectrum of medical specialties available within the medical center, the Department of PM&R is able to offer outstanding patient care, education, and research.
Please explore this information, which describes our physical medicine and rehabilitation program. Then we urge you to consider a residency in this rewarding specialty.