The UAB Montgomery Internal Medicine Residency Program is the internal medicine residency program that trains physicians while providing high-quality primary healthcare.
Imagine walking into your doctors' office and having the benefit of board-certified internists and a multispecialty group of physicians on hand, if necessary, to provide you with more specialized care should you need it. Imagine having the expertise of 20 physicians-in-training studying your case, backed by faculty members of one of the best schools of medicine in the country.
Patients of the University of Alabama Health Center Montgomery receive just this type of care. This three-year, post-graduate medical training program, based at Baptist Medical Center South, supplies medical care to a wide cross-section of citizens in Montgomery, while training 20 physicians at a time in the art of internal medicine. The residents-graduates of medical schools throughout the United States and some foreign countries-provide care to patients referred through the Baptist Medical Center South emergency department, local physicians and other referral sources.
For example, a patient seen by a resident in the Emergency Department is later followed by that resident for the remainder of his or her training. This process provides continuity of care and preventive healthcare, which many patients have never experienced before.
The care provided by the residents is observed by a clinical faculty of 55 board-certified, practicing physicians, plus five institutionally based faculty members, who provide the support, instruction and encouragement that promotes medical knowledge, responsive patient management and personal growth.
In addition to quality patient care, the program provides the benefit of weekly Grand Rounds, a series of education sessions for physicians and other healthcare professionals conducted by distinguished professors from medical schools all over the country. The UAB Health Center Montgomery also offers clinical training for medical students and nurse practitioners.
Members of the faculty, residents and staff routinely participate in health fairs in the Montgomery area, performing screening for hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipdemia and prostate cancer. Based on the success of the Family Clinic (which screens children born to HIV infected mothers) and the Adolescent HIV Clinic, the Sickle Cell Clinic and the Pediatric Pulmonary Clinic from Children's Hospital now holds its clinic in the Ambulatory Care Clinic.
During the past few years, the UAB Montgomery Internal Medicine Residency Program has also developed a very prestigious faculty medical practice composed of a multispeciality groups of physicians who handle the more complicated medical cases seen at the primary care facility.
Established in the early 1970s by a committee of local physicians, led by J.J. Kirschenfeld, M.D., F.A.C.P., F.A.C.C., the residency program is currently under the direction of Dr. Jewell H. Halanych, program director. The program has trained approximately 150 physicians since its inception with approximately 70 percent of these trainees remaining in Alabama to practice internal medicine. Approximately 30 percent provide primary medical care in Montgomery.
"That is the greatest benefit of the program-providing more primary care physicians to this area," Dr. Halanych stressed. "This program is the only internal medicine training program outside of Birmingham and Mobile in the state. Coupled with the new Family Medicine program, Montgomery is becoming a unique primary care training site for the entire state."