There are many fun and unique ways to explore your career pathways in your pre-clinical years of medical school. One of the best means of doing this is by becoming active with our many student organizations in the School of Medicine.

These interest groups afford students the ability to network with residents and faculty members, explore various specialties, and provide various career development opportunities and workshops. Lunch and learns (free food!) are probably one of the more popular events for each of the respective groups. These groups are plentiful and diverse—ranging from Internal Medicine Interest Group and Med Pride to Medical Spanish Interest Group and Wilderness Medicine Interest Group. 

To give you a sense of some of the exciting opportunities available through interest groups, we want to highlight two groups in particular the Emergency Medicine Interest Group and the Surgery Interest Group. 

Jamal Egbaria, a member of the Emergency Medicine Interest Group, was able to shadow a UAB ER physician Dr. Bobby Lewis at Talladega Motor Speedway during their spring races in early May. Jamal joined classmate Kyle Glisson in Talladega on the Friday of race weekend where they shadowed in the clinic at the racetrack.  Because of the nature of a race weekend, they were able to see a wide variety of acute presentations in the clinic. While Jamal said they learned a lot in the clinic, he also had a great time touring the garages, seeing the drivers, their cars, and crews. As Jamal put it, “All in all, this is a super awesome experience and the perfect embodiment of medicine– you get the opportunity to help people, learn, and also have a little bit of fun.”

The Surgery Interest group also holds a fall social each year where according to last year’s president Shelby Bergstresser, interested medical students have the ability to network with about 20 surgeons from Orthopedics, Plastics, Urology, Transplant Surgery, General Surgery, Vascular, GI and Pediatric Surgery over a nice dinner at one of the faculty members homes. The purpose of the event is to allow for students who are interested in surgery to meet and network with surgeons from different specialties in a relaxed and casual environment. The annual event allows many students to find shadowing opportunities and research mentors. Shelby noted that she met her research mentor Dr. Jared White, a UAB transplant surgeon, two years ago at this event and that she has been working with him ever since. 

This is a brief introduction to the many student organizations that we have at UABSOM. You will learn much more about them and how to get involved during orientation, but this is just a taste of what is to come!  


Written by Carter Boyd