UAB Medicine earned top marks in 2025—as the best hospital in Alabama, a leading U.S. healthcare brand, and a global leader in specialty care. Read about just a few of the accolades driving this momentum.

In 2025, Heersink faculty earned prestigious awards and honors that reflect their excellence across education, research, and clinical care. These honors highlight both individual achievement and the collective impact of our faculty’s contributions to advancing medicine.

Last year, the Heersink School of Medicine welcomed exceptional new department chairs whose leadership is already making a meaningful impact. Bringing fresh perspectives and deep expertise, they are advancing excellence in education, research, and patient care while helping shape our school’s future.

In 2025, the support of alumni, grateful patients, faculty, staff, and community partners fueled innovation and excellence across the Heersink School of Medicine, expanding educational opportunities, advancing transformative research, and enhancing healthcare across Alabama and beyond. Here we highlight just a few of these gifts and the meaningful progress made possible by our donors’ extraordinary generosity and vision.

In response to significant changes in federal policy that affected research funding and other areas, Heersink School of Medicine and UAB leaders took swift and direct action to strengthen continuity and stability for our faculty and staff and support our missions. This included advocating directly with congressional and other government leaders, in Washington, D.C., and on our campus.

Clinical trials enhance healthcare by offering patients access to the newest and most promising experimental treatments. Even more importantly, they give patients hope for a healthier future.

Heersink, UAB, and the UAB Health System celebrated the completion of exciting new facilities and facility upgrades in 2025, while ongoing construction projects continued to take shape. These enhancements to our campus promise to serve as essential building blocks for our school’s future excellence in patient care, biomedical research, and medical education.

Heersink medical students held a white coat ceremony for aspiring young medical professionals at Barrett Elementary School on September 26, 2025. The students recited the Hippocratic Oath, learned about healthcare careers, and tried out various medical instruments.

The UAB Department of Microbiology has long been a powerhouse of basic and translational research and was ranked 12th in NIH research funding by the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research (BRIMR) in their 2024 rankings. The department built on this record of excellence in 2025, publishing cutting-edge research and enhancing its reputation nationally and internationally.

UAB Medicine marked a year of remarkable milestones—redefining emergency care, transforming cancer therapy, performing groundbreaking surgical procedures, and even welcoming its first facility dog. Discover just a few of the pioneering ways we are elevating care for patients across Alabama and beyond.

The first anniversary of a pivotal turning point for healthcare in Alabama. The launch of new and innovative programs to increase mental healthcare access for people of all ages. A statewide genomic medicine milestone. 2025 was a year of purposeful growth, opening pathways to needed care and bringing the promise of precision medicine to people in every part of our state.

UAB Medicine expanded its reach in 2025, bringing expert care to communities across Alabama. Through new Tele-ICUs, a pilot teletrauma program, and innovative on-the-ground initiatives—including street psychiatry, rural training, and student-led outreach—we are strengthening access to high-quality care for patients wherever they are.

Each year, our school celebrates our students as they mark major milestones that bookend the medical school journey. Here we share scenes from Match Day, Commencement, and the White Coat Ceremony.

Addressing the burden of chronic diseases that are especially prevalent in the South, like heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure, is the focus of a new University Wide Interdisciplinary Research Center (UWIRC) that was announced in July 2025. The UAB Comprehensive Healthy Living Research Center is UAB’s only UWIRC that offers a comprehensive infrastructure for chronic disease prevention and control through community-engaged and population health research approaches.