The Montgomery Regional Medical Campus of the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine will welcome 20 students of the class of 2018 to orientation on Thursday, July 31. This class will be the third to serve clinical clerkships for the third and fourth years of medical school in Montgomery.
The Montgomery campus, which makes use of facilities at Baptist Health, is a collaborative effort among UAB, Baptist Health and the city of Montgomery. The majority of the students in the new class are from Alabama; two are natives of Montgomery.
Orientation is a multifaceted day developed to entrench the students in the culture of health care in Montgomery, the facilities involved in their upcoming education and the overall community. Data show that physicians have a tendency to practice where they train. About 44 percent of UAB medical students stay in Alabama for their residencies; 57 percent of graduates from regional campuses stay in Alabama to practice, and 30 percent of them practice primary care in the state.
Students will also serve the community by assisting with the renovation of a local home by Habitat for Humanity. The owners of the home will be present for the workday.
“In addition to training, recruitment and retention of physicians, there is a social-consciousness aspect of medical school that we will develop,” said Dr. Wick Many, Virginia Loeb Weil Professor of Medical Education, and dean of the Montgomery Regional Medical Campus. “Students have an obligation to give back, as it is indeed a privilege to be a physician.”