June 30, 2016
The College of Community Health Sciences is adding to its offering of graduate medical education an Emergency Medicine Fellowship. The one-year program, which is provided in conjunction with Rush Foundation Hospital in Meridian, Mississippi, will accept two fellows who will start their rotations in July 2017. The program will be based primarily at Rush Foundation Hospital, and will include rotations through radiology, anesthesia, orthopedics and trauma, and advanced courses in obstetrics, airway management and advanced life support. Some of the rotations will take place at DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa. Funding for the program is provided by Rush Foundation Hospital, and Dr. Richard Friend, director of The University of Alabama Family Medicine Residency, which the College operates, says that more funding is being sought to grow the program over time. Friend, who specializes in emergency medicine, says establishing this fellowship has been a goal since he arrived at the College in 2013. “Fifty percent of all family physicians do some sort of urgent care or emergency medicine, and I think this will provide another venue for advanced education in areas where family medicine physicians might need some additional training,” he says. Friend, along with Dr. Tamer Elsayed, assistant director of the College’s Family Medicine Residency and an alumnus of the Residency, and Dr. Walt Willis, the Emergency Room director at Rush Foundation Hospital, will work to develop the curriculum. Elsayed and Willis will direct the fellowship. The College provides training in sub-specialties of family medicine to suit the needs of communities in Alabama and the region, including obstetrics, sports medicine, hospital medicine, behavioral health, rural public psychiatry and geriatric medicine. For more information about the fellowships the College offers, visit fmr.ua.edu/fellowships.
