BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Forty-one first year medical students at the UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) School of Medicine have formed a chapter of the national service fraternity Phi Delta Epsilon. The fraternity focuses on service, philanthropy and volunteerism.

“Phi Delta Epsilon gives us an opportunity to grow professionally and give something to our community,” said chapter co-organizer Sean Haight. “It gives us an opportunity to belong to something that is greater than ourselves.”

Organizers say the UAB chapter will mirror the diversity found in the School of Medicine and will be open to all regardless of race, culture and sex.

“It is important to nurture the altruistic desires of incoming med-students to foster their growth towards becoming compassionate doctors, a commodity of which there can be no surplus,” said co-organizer Micah Howard.

Phi Delta Epsilon began in 1904 with a chapter established at Cornell University. There are now nearly 90 chapters active in the United States. The fraternity’s mission is to foster and achieve bonding among physicians of high moral character devoted to education and philanthropy for a lifetime.

Haight said that one of the chapter’s first projects was to provide supplies and materials worth $3,000, along with volunteer time, to the School of Medicine’s M-Power medical clinic. The clinic, run in conjunction with M-Power Ministries, is staffed by medical school students and provides free medical care for underserved populations in Birmingham.