The training of third and fourth-year medical students and residents at the UAB School of Medicine Montgomery Regional Campus is being enhanced by the opening of a new multispecialty clinic, formed in partnership with Baptist Health and the UAB Health System. The UAB Medicine Multispecialty Clinic is located on the campus of at Baptist Medical Center South in Montgomery. Baptist South and East are also the home of the Montgomery Regional Medical Campus, one of the School of Medicine’s three regional campuses, including Huntsville and Tuscaloosa. Initially, the clinic will offer four specialties—urology, gastroenterology, endocrinology, and rheumatology—with hopes of expanding to other specialties in the coming years. The clinic opened August 1 and houses 10 new physicians who have been recruited by Baptist Health.
It is hoped that the addition of these new physicians along with the increased access to specialty care in a convenient, centralized location will lead to earlier diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of diseases for the people of the River Region around Montgomery. In addition, patients will have access to clinical trials and research activities being performed at UAB that they otherwise wouldn’t.
W.J. Many, Jr., M.D.Moreover, the clinic’s opening will enhance medical students’ exposure to these important specialties. W. J. Many, Jr., M.D., regional dean of the Montgomery Campus and holder of the Virginia Loeb Weil Endowed Professorship in Medical Education, says third-year medical students will now have the opportunity to select urology as their required surgical elective, and fourth-year medical students can spend a senior elective with the endocrinology, rheumatology, urology, and gastroenterology faculty. The new multispecialty clinic faculty will also participate in didactic conferences for students and residents and in CME conferences for faculty physicians.
“The need for these types of specialists in our area is great—the physician workforce in large swathes of the state is aging, and smaller communities need physicians who are knowledgeable about certain medical specialties,” says Many. “This partnership between the UAB Health System and Baptist Health opens doors for students and residents in need of training, and also members of the community who have limited access to care." To learn more about the UAB Medicine Multispecialty Clinic and physicians, visit www.UABMedicine-Baptist.com.
Baptist Health Care Foundation Supports Success of Montgomery Campus
While Baptist Health provides space for the UAB Montgomery Regional Medical Campus at Baptist Medical Center South, its philanthropic arm, the Baptist Health Care Foundation, has made a number of generous gifts to support medical students training in Montgomery. Since 2013, the foundation has given $85,000 to establish three scholarship funds benefiting Montgomery campus students. What’s more, it has made formal pledges to fund two of the scholarships annually, one for 20 years and the other in perpetuity, bringing the total gifts and pledges to medical scholarships to $495,000.
In 2014, an initial gift of $30,000 established the Baptist Health Care Foundation Scholarship for the Montgomery Regional Medical Campus. Fourth-year medical student Jeffery Jones of Oneonta was selected as the inaugural recipient of the scholarship for the 2014/2015 academic year, and his scholarship was renewed for 2015/2016. The foundation recently committed another $15,000 gift to offer a current-use scholarship for the current academic year.
Jane R. Cantey EdwardsDuring the Montgomery campus’s second year in operation, a beloved member of the foundation board, Jane R. Cantey Edwards, died after a hard-fought battle with cancer. Ms. Edwards was a pioneering entrepreneur and leading Montgomery businessperson who served on numerous boards and supported a number of local causes. To honor her commitment to Baptist Health and to bolstering the future of health care in the region through her support of the Montgomery Regional Campus, the foundation established the Jane R. Cantey Edwards Family Medical Scholarship. Preference for the scholarship is given to students from the River Region—the five-county area around Montgomery—in order to support the aspirations of “home-grown” talent, and in the hopes that students who train in Montgomery campus will eventually practice medicine in the area. Will Rutland of Montgomery, then a third-year student in the M.D. /M.P.H. program, was named the inaugural recipient of the scholarship for the 2015/2016 academic year. Lack of health care access for people on the margins of society is a problem of particular concern to him which he one day hopes to address in his own practice. “Through simple, principled measures, I will dedicate myself to providing care to those to whom it is too often denied, and, as a public health scholar and policy leader, I will work to create systems-level solutions that allow all people to access the quality care that they deserve,” he says. Rutland’s scholarship was renewed this year and a second scholarship was awarded to third-year medical student Justin Lewis, also of Montgomery. The gift will provide two scholarships annually for approximately 20 years, bringing the full estimated gift commitment to $400,000.
Charles E. Ingalls, M.D.
Established by the Baptist Health Foundation in March 2016, the Charles E. Ingalls, M.D., Medical Scholarship honors a 1971 School of Medicine alumnus and an esteemed fixture of the Montgomery medical community and beloved mentor to many physicians. Dr. Ingalls completed a residency in vascular surgery at UAB in 1976 and went on to found his own practice, Montgomery Vascular Surgery. He was instrumental in the development of minimally invasive vascular surgery in Alabama and is credited with performing the state’s first successful aneurysm repair using the technique. Third-year medical student Palee Myrex of Brushy Pond, Ala., was selected as the inaugural Charles E. Ingalls, M.D., Medical Scholarship recipient for the 2016/2017 academic year. Myrex says of her upbringing in small-town Alabama and her desire to return there to practice medicine, “Growing up in a town without stoplights or sidewalks afforded me a wonderful childhood full of adventures akin to that of a Faulkner novel. As I have spent these past six years pursing my education in larger cities, I find that my longing to return to Brushy Pond has only grown stronger. Being from an unincorporated town, I read the statistics about health disparities in rural communities, and I understand firsthand that the people in my community need someone who can offer them high quality, effective medical care. I want to be that person.” The foundation’s gift is structured to provide an annual $10,000 scholarship for a Montgomery Regional Campus student indefinitely.
The generosity of the Baptist Health Care Foundation’s gifts are a profound vote of confidence and investment in the future of medical training in Montgomery and, indeed, in the future of health care for the River Region. It is yet another way that Baptist Health has become one of the School of Medicine’s most valued partners in our mission to train the next generation of leaders in medicine for the state of Alabama.
To learn more about giving to scholarships at the UAB Montgomery Regional Medical Campus, contact Jessica Brooks Lane, Director of Development for Medical Scholarships and Primary Care, at 205-975-4452 or jblane@uab.edu, or visit UAB School of Medicine Scholarship Giving online.