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Back in Time with the Mobile Medical Museum

Posted by admin on May 3, 2017

MOBILE – The Mobile area has many sites for tourists to visit during a stay. From the Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center & IMAX Theater, the USS Alabama Battleship, the beautiful flowers of Bellingrath Gardens, dipping your toes in the warm Gulf waters of Dauphin Island, to celebrating Mardi Gras at the Mobile Carnival Museum, there’s one attraction in Mobile that may not immediately catch your attention, but you surely should not miss…the Mobile Medical Museum.

Founded in 1962 by Dr. Samuel Eichold II of Mobile from a modest collection of 100 medical artifacts, books and documents from the 18th and 19th centuries collected by Patricia Huestis Paterson, daughter of another Mobile physician, James Heustis (1828-1891). And thus began the museum’s mission, to preserve and exhibit medical artifacts that commemorate Mobile’s importance in the evolution of medical education and public health in the State of Alabama and the Gulf Coast.

It wasn’t long before the museum began to grow, as did the collections, which showcase the early days and advances in nursing, radiology, infectious diseases, pharmacology and more. Eventually, the museum outgrew its locations and moved, more than once. As the collections continued to grow, space became more and more precious. Displays that include and iron lung from the 1930s, an antique wheelchair still in perfect condition, Civil War medical tools, and two life-sized papier-mache anatomical models that belonged to Dr. Josiah Nott demonstrating the autonomic nervous system and the lymphatic system.

Mobile surgeon Charles B. Rodning, M.D., PhD., is president of the Mobile Medical Museum and has been affiliated with the organization for 40 years. In fact, he knew the founder, Dr. Eichold.

“Since my family and I located to Mobile, I interacted with the founder, Dr. Eichold, in part because of my education as a physician and part because I have a keen interest in medical history,” Dr. Rodning said. “A substantial component of my scholarly endeavor has been in relationship to medical history, particularly in relationship to how it relates to this community and to this region.”

It has been his love of this history, and this organization, that produced a special exhibition space, the Mary Elizabeth and Charles Bernard Rodning Gallery, at the museum. “Very proud to have a gallery here that will bear the Rodning family name. The Rodning family is most appreciative and most grateful and humble for that honor,” Dr. Rodning said.

The truth is that the Rodning Gallery is but one of many housed in a space which has become much too small for these collections. With more than 5,000 medical artifacts, the museum rotates its showcase pieces regularly and is currently housed, quite fittingly, on the first floor of Mobile’s oldest house. The Vincent-Doan-Walsh House is on the National Register of Historic Places and sits on the campus of the University of South Alabama Children’s and Women’s Hospital. The Mobile Medical Museum has been located here since 2003.

As Dr. Rodning explained, there is a continuous struggle for exhibit space.

“We only have approximately 1,000 sq. ft. at the moment and at least five times that many artifacts and specimens and manuscripts and records that we could display. Even given the history of this building, if given the opportunity to move, we would,” he said.

As Museum Executive Director, Daryn Glassbrook, Ph.D., explained, making the most of the situation has become an art all to itself.

“This location has some advantages being in a medical quarter of the city, and not too far from downtown,” Dr. Glassbrook said. “A lot of people have the misunderstanding that we are affiliated with the University of South Alabama, which has never been true. We are small and independent and locally funded, which most people don’t know. Our funding comes from donations and a few foundations. We are going to bring back some event fund-raising in the coming year. We made some progress in event fundraising in the last year, but it’s a struggle. All the nonprofits in Mobile are dealing with this same issue.”

The Mobile Medical Museum receives about 1,100 visitors annually, and most of the visitors are students of all ages…from grade school through college and medical school. Dr. Glassbrook said most tourists who are not students, however, find the museum through TripAdvisor because they are looking for a unique experience when they are visiting the Mobile area, and that helps him to plan each display a little better.

“When I organize the displays I’m thinking about which artifacts these visitors would most like to see. A lot of the medical museums have as part of their audience people who are looking for the unusual. It’s not the most mainstream form of entertainment,” Dr. Glassbrook laughed. “We’re rooted in history, but we try to be contemporary, too. We’re planning a Founder’s Day in May to celebrate Dr. Eichold’s birthday, and this summer we’re launching a summer camp in partnership with the Gulf Coast Exploreum for the first time.”

According to Dr. Rodning, many do not realize that the Mobile Medical Museum is a not-for-profit organization operating on contributions. Currently, the museum is open Tuesday through Friday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. by appointment, but museum staff is hoping to expand the hours to one evening and one weekend for drop-in visits. If you would like to know more about the museum or to make a contribution, visit the museum online at https://www.mobilemedicalmuseum.org/

“I think a lot of history buffs would enjoy a tour of the museum. People who do come here are amazed at what medicine was like 50, 100 or more years ago,” Dr. Rodning said.

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Just a Guy with a Ladder with Lee Irvin, M.D.

Posted by admin on April 7, 2017

MOBILE – You probably don’t know Lee Irvin, M.D., of Mobile, and he’s fine with that. He’s the kind of gentleman you’d love to hang out with and have a drink or dinner with…swap stories with. But it’s easy to see that his medical mission over the last couple of years wears heavy on his heart.

Dr. Irvin is a pain physician. Yes, a pain physician. He said he has no problem with introducing himself that way, even though there is a bit of a stigma associated with the treatment of pain, especially in Mobile following the arrest and conviction in February 2017 of Mobile physicians Xiulu Ruan and John Patrick Couch. Couch and Ruan were convicted in federal court for operating their clinics as pill mills, raking in millions of dollars by overprescribing potent, and deadly, narcotic pain medications to patients.

“It was like driving down the road, seeing a house on fire, and you’re the guy with a ladder,” Dr. Irvin said. “I was the guy with the ladder. Of course, I was going to help those patients.”

Dr. Irvin was the first physician in Mobile to treat patients with pain pumps more than 30 years ago, so he was the first physician to step up and render aid to the patients Couch and Ruan left behind who were on pain pumps. Dr. Irvin said he had about 35 of his own patients on pain pumps at that time, but there was an influx of nearly 350 pain pump patients from the now-closed practice in need of immediate care, some exhibiting signs of withdrawal by the time he intervened.

“Unfortunately, there were another reported 7,000 to 8,000 medication-managed patients from that practice that needed assistance,” Dr. Irvin said. “There was no way I could take on all of them, but in that year and a half, I took on another several hundred more. We were on a clock. It took almost a year to get those patients weaned off that medication. So, when you ask whether I had to do this, yeah…I did.”

One huge problem Dr. Irvin noted was the lack of resources for patients who have addiction issues, resources on the local and state levels that have left patients in need of specialized care falling through the proverbial cracks.

“We are in dire need of addiction specialists, social workers, mental health professionals – resources these patients need to get better. How can there be this tremendous need, yet we still do not have these resources to help our patients?” Dr. Irvin questioned.

Dr. Irvin continues to work closely with investigators with the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners to ensure the safety and health of the patients. As he puts it, “Doctors are supposed to help,” but he said he feels the reputation of most pain physicians has been tarnished by those who have put money above the welfare of their patients.

“When someone asks me now what my specialty is, I have no trouble saying I’m in pain management. I started in anesthesiology, but for the last 10 years or so, pain physicians have had such a bad reputation because of those bad physicians mistreating this profession and endangering the lives of their patients. We don’t want to write a bunch of narcotics to cover up an underlying disease. I have an old-fashioned idea that as a physician you should sit down with your patient and talk, get a complete history…and listen. It’s amazing how much information you can get from your patients if you just listen. I haven’t done anything amazing. I just listen and take care of my patients,” Dr. Irvin explained.

It may be an old-fashioned idea, according to Dr. Irvin, but his decision to make pain management his life’s work is actually deeply rooted in the illness of a family friend.

“I had a personal reason for specializing in pain,” Dr. Irvin said. “There was a fellow I grew up next door to who was like my second father. He was my hunting and fishing buddy. There were some kids out shooting while he was quail hunting, and he caught a .22 round in the hip. His doctors kept telling him it would do more harm than good to take that round out, but it was really a red herring. There was something else going on causing his pain.”

It was about 18 months later when Dr. Irvin’s old friend was told he had prostate cancer with mets. His pain wasn’t being managed very well, and one of the last times he visited with him, he had been warned that he might not recognize him…but he did.

“I wasn’t expecting that. He was in a lot of pain, sitting on a sack of medicine, and basically not knowing where he was, but he still recognized me. I couldn’t help but think there has got to be a better way. That was my moment. That was my reason for choosing pain medicine,” Dr. Irvin said.

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It’s all about Timing with Dyrc Sibrans, M.D.

Posted by admin on March 1, 2017

DECATUR — Dyrc Sibrans, M.D., still greets patients with a firm handshake and a friendly smile. His laughter is infectious and easily fills the room as he reminisces about what he’s accomplished during his career. Already retired once from his own thriving medical practice in Decatur in 2000, he originally prepared to spend more time with his wife at a fishing cabin they purchased in Montana, but something just wasn’t quite right. It was all about timing.

“The personal relationships you build with your patients is what’s so special to me,” Dr. Sibrans said. “I thought that it was probably time for me to get out. We bought the place in Montana in 1998, and went out there after I retired in 2001. I had a stack of books on one side of my chair that kept me in that chair until I had read them all and moved them from that side of the chair to the other side! I never had time before to read just for fun until I retired.”

The allure of Big Sky country was more than just reading for Dr. Sibrans. He’s an avid fly fisherman, and with miles and miles of streams awaiting him, the Alabama rheumatologist actually felt right at home…for a little while. But, as with most who answer a calling in their lives, the first retirement never quite sticks. So, when he was asked to review a few charts for a small community free clinic back home, he happily obliged. It wasn’t long before those few chart reviews became to mean much more to him and to the Community Free Clinic of Decatur-Morgan County. Today, Dr. Sibrans serves as the clinic’s medical director.

The Community Free Clinic of Decatur-Morgan County opened in 2004 and provides free medical care, dental care and prescription medication for low-income residents of Morgan County. Staffed by a handful of full-time employees, the medical staff are all volunteers and has expanded to care for more than 3,000 patients annually.

“I did some chart reviews here when the clinic first started, and they needed a physician to help review the charts that the nurse practitioners had done during the day. We had about three or four of us doing that in the beginning. We average about 20 patients a night, and we do clinic two days a week. That’s a lot. Occasionally we have about three or four doctors that will come in after they have closed their practice, and we’ll finish up the night together. We get here about 4 p.m., and we go until we get finished, but we aren’t the ones who have the long days. The ladies in the office have the long days. They stay a lot longer than we do because they have to do all the paperwork,” Dr. Sibrans explained.

The difficult part is to continue to recruit physicians willing to volunteer. The clinic does not take walk-in patients, and there is a screening process. Patients are seen at times when most working physicians have just closed their practices for the day, this makes it difficult for some physicians to come to the Clinic and work three additional hours.

“I do interviews mainly to get some more doctors to come in and volunteer. I think it is a privilege as medical professionals to volunteer. I think it is our responsibility to the community to, in some way, give back to the people who gave so much to us,” Dr. Sibrans said. “When the clinic first opened, they had a lot of physicians who would come in and volunteer. But, over the years, they began to drift away and things got worse. I was doing the chart reviews and noticed there were just a few people doing a lot of the work. Pretty soon I was asked to be fully on board.”

Early on in Dr. Sibrans’ career, he made a critical choice about his career…a choice which could have landed him far outside the path of medicine.

“I have some questions about some of the things I have done in my life, but becoming a physician is definitely not one of them. I truly enjoy it. I knew when I was in high school that I was either going to be a priest or a doctor. I went to the seminary and realized that maybe the celibate life maybe wasn’t the life for me!” Dr. Sibrans laughed. “So, I answered a different calling, and I do consider medicine my true vocation. I had already made up my mind that medicine was what I was going to do. I was a late bloomer. I didn’t really get going in academics until my senior year in high school. Most kids now have to start making great grades in high school. I was very lucky. I got into medicine long before the control by the federal government and insurance companies. The demands that you have to be automated now, it just takes too much time to do what you need to do, and that’s to simply treat your patient. The practice of medicine has become way too difficult these days.”

As a battalion surgeon with the 173rd Airborne Brigade, Dr. Sibrans was part of the Battle of Dak To at the beginning of the Tet Offensive, a nasty battle lasting 19 days and killing 376 U.S. soldiers. He was wounded himself during this battle. Even though he spent much of his time mending his fellow soldiers after battle, Dr. Sibrans found time to render aid to a Montagnard hospital in the highlands not far from his camp.

“Later, we were at a relatively benign base doing protection services. At that time, I was just doing sick call that could mostly be taken care of with antibiotics or cough syrup. I asked for permission to go to that hospital to help out. They were operating on anyone who came in. I saw stuff there that I hadn’t seen since Tropical Medicine in medical school. It was fascinating! All sorts of stuff that I had only read about and never seen again. One day a leper came in, and he was sent on to the leper colony a few miles away that was run by French nuns. I’d never seen anything like that, so I went to volunteer any way I could. I only went twice. Apparently some Viet Cong came into the colony looking for someone. I don’t think they were looking for me. I think they were looking for a Montagnard chief, but our intelligence people found out, and I couldn’t go back. I contacted my wife stateside who got in touch with some drug companies who donated some medicine back to the colony several times. That was such an eye-opening experience. I don’t know that I did that much good, but I know I learned a lot. I tell you what, the training I had at the University of Alabama, and the time I spent at the ER and in the VA, I felt like there wasn’t much I couldn’t handle for at least a little while,” Dr. Sibrans said.

With a lifetime of medicine and volunteerism under his belt, Dr. Sibrans is getting ready to retire…again…at the end of the year. There will be more time for family, reading, fly fishing and his many other hobbies, but when he talks about retiring there’s a bit of a twinkle in his eye.

“It took me a long time to decide to retire. It’s like an old saying I heard a long time ago in medical school that if you’re thinking about doing a tracheostomy, then you should have already done it. So, if I was thinking about retiring, I probably should have already retired!” Dr. Sibrans laughed.

For more information about the Community Free Clinic of Decatur-Morgan County or to become a volunteer, please contact Executive Director Jessica Payne at (256) 309-2491.

Tags: decatur, dyrc, giving, member, morgan, sibrans, vet, vietnam

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Keeping Promises with Irene Bailey, M.D.

Posted by admin on February 1, 2017

TALLASSEE — Irene Bailey, M.D., is a woman who believes in the power of faith, family and medicine. Running two practices, one in Tallassee and a new extended-hour family medicine/urgent care facility that recently opened in Montgomery, can take its toll. But for Dr. Bailey and her husband, Shaikh Wahid, M.D., there’s always time in the day to enjoy a cup of tea and a piece of chocolate.

Born and raised in Bangladesh, Dr. Bailey’s dream of being a physician began when she was a young girl with a promise made to her father.

“I lost my baby brother when I was 10 years old and he was three months old. That was the first dead body I had ever seen and I was shocked. Now I’m the baby in the family. My parents were devastated,” Dr. Bailey explained. “But, that’s when my father told me, ‘Be a pediatrician and help these kids.’ It was my dream, too. I wanted to help even though I was so young.”

She went to medical school and after just one internship moved to New York with her husband and two-year-old son in 1993. While her husband looked for his residency program, she worked as a nursing school instructor. In 2001, she discovered the UAB School of Medicine Montgomery Regional Medical Campus.

“Through the Family Medicine Residency Program, I realized that I could see everybody. I knew I wouldn’t be bored. Today I see everyone from grandbabies to grandladies. We touch every part of every life, and I love it! I enjoy every day because I’m so blessed!” Dr. Bailey said.

Before long, Dr. Bailey found herself in a unique situation when she became the only full-time physician working with The Learning Tree in Tallassee. The Learning Tree is a nonprofit organization providing educational, residential and support services for children and adolescents with developmental disabilities, including autism. As a statewide organization, The Learning Tree serves more than 600 children and adolescents in 30 Alabama counties, but in Tallassee, the residential school also services Jacksonville and Mobile for about 100 children.

“Treatment can pose a challenge,” Dr. Bailey said. “Sometimes I visit them there at The Learning Tree, but sometimes the children will need to come here. My other patients have always been very understanding, and we make every accommodation we can to get these patients in and seen quickly. But, sometimes I’ve had to go outside to the van to see them because there are just too many distractions here in the office.”

Dr. Bailey said that as her relationship with the administration and staff of The Learning Tree has grown over the past four years, so has the willingness of other specialty physicians to lend a hand when necessary. In fact, Dr. Bailey said, some of these patients who are not part of the residency program in Tallassee travel as long as five hours to see her.

“Autism presents special circumstances, but we all try to rise to that occasion so the children are as comfortable as we can make them,” she said. “I could have said no when this opportunity presented itself, but I’m so blessed. I’m happy that I have this opportunity with these children. If I can help them just a little bit, it’s not them – I’m the one who’s blessed.”

With her work in the Tallassee community and The Learning Tree, and the success of two medical practices, one has to wonder about that promise she made so many years ago.

“My mother and father have both been able to visit and seen me practice medicine. They were so proud! I was also blessed to have had so much support from my father-in-law, who was also a physician. Although it was a promise to my father when I was a child that I become a physician, this has been for me, too,” Dr. Bailey said.

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From the Treatment Room to the Classroom with Wick Many, M.D.

Posted by admin on January 3, 2017

MONTGOMERY — He jokes about it now, but Wick Many, M.D., said he was a sickly child who spent a lot of time in his pediatrician’s office. For those times when he was too sick, his doctor would make house calls…an experience he did not look forward to.

“Back then, in the 1950s, pediatricians would come out to your house at the end of the day. They would spend all day in their clinics seeing children, but then for those who were really sick, they would make house calls. I was scared to death!” Dr. Many laughed. “The doctor would come in with his big brown doctor’s bag, and that usually meant I was going to get a shot of something. That was my first recollection of medicine.”

Dr. Many grew up around medicine. A native of New Orleans, his mother was the paging operator at what was then the Southern Baptist Hospital of New Orleans. Because she worked night or evening shifts and couldn’t come home for dinner, family dinners were often taken on the ER ramp.

“No one in my family had a medical background, but at some point in high school, I decided this was what I wanted to do. I didn’t have an A-HA moment or an epiphany, it’s just what I knew I wanted to do,” Dr. Many said.

Although he went to LSU for his undergraduate degree, he intended to stay close to home for medical school until a friend who was accepted to UAB talked him into joining him in Birmingham. Once convinced of UAB’s credibility as a medical school, he had to convince his colleagues back home in Louisiana.

“This was the late 1960s, and my colleagues who were at LSU just didn’t understand,” Dr. Many explained. “Alabama? Birmingham? What? They just didn’t get it. I stayed at UAB for the rest of my time except for a year when I went to Dallas. I’ve been affiliated with UAB in some way, shape or form since 1980.”

Although trained in infectious disease, there came a time when Dr. Many’s marketing skills were put to the test when he was approached with an opportunity to step into the spotlight and bring some publicity to the UAB School of Medicine Montgomery Regional Medical Campus.

WSFA-12 had run a syndicated medical segment for years with Houston’s Dr. James “Red” Duke, Jr. When that syndication ended, Dr. Many stepped in, not only to provide helpful medical information to viewers but also for the sake of the Montgomery UAB campus.

“Even to this day – TO THIS DAY – there are a lot of people who do not know there is a residency program and a branch campus here in Montgomery,” Dr. Many said. “I can still go to the bank or the post office and folks will ask me if I drive down from Birmingham every day, and I have to tell them no, no, no. UAB has been in Montgomery since 1978, but the majority of the people here in the region still don’t know that. We haven’t done a lot of advertising or marketing because we haven’t had the funding for it.”

As dean of medicine for the UAB School of Medicine Montgomery Regional Medical Campus, Dr. Many is responsible for about 40 medical students, roughly 20 third-year and 20 fourth-year students. There’s still much room to grow, but Dr. Many said the Montgomery campus is unique considering the resources he and his staff utilize to give the students a well-rounded medical education. For example, in the eight weeks students spend working in the family medicine “block,” four of those weeks are spent in Montgomery with another four in Selma. Part of the time spent in Selma is then spent in Marion with the idea that each step further removes the students from what they have become accustomed to in medical school.

“The purpose of that is to give them an appreciation of not only the opportunities of practicing in a rural setting but also the challenges so that in the future if they decide not to do that they have a better appreciation for what family physicians in that position actually do. I call it ‘intellectual isolation.’ Everyone likes to share stories. If you’re a solo practitioner in a very small town, and you have a patient that comes to you with something weird that you haven’t seen since medical school, who do you talk to? Physicians in more metropolitan areas are fortunate because we have grand rounds, lectures, and of course the Internet has made a difference, but in the most rural of our communities, we don’t have these things,” Dr. Many said.

The Montgomery campus also utilizes resources unique to Montgomery for special teaching opportunities. Representatives from the Medical Association of the State of Alabama, the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners, the Alabama Department of Public Health, the state forensics lab, military physicians and representatives from the Montgomery Police Department all have a special take on medicine that can’t be taught in the classroom but aspects of medicine that new physicians need to understand.

Considering all his contributions to the medical landscape in the River Region and to UAB, it’s difficult to picture medicine without Dr. Many. But in his junior year in college, he also took a different path.

“I came very close to changing my major to history my junior year in college,” Dr. Many said. “If I wasn’t a physician, I’d be a college history professor. I love to read, but I don’t read fiction. I read biographies of our presidents and historical figures. My favorite book is the biography of Alexander Hamilton. He has to this day had an impact on our country. He created the financial system of the United States yet he had so many flaws. Fascinating!”

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All in the Family with the Smiths

Posted by admin on December 1, 2016

LINEVILLE — The City of Lineville is a small, rural community of about 2,500 residents in Clay County. At the heart of the community lies Lineville Clinic, home of the Smith family medical practice.

Patriarch George Smith Sr., M.D., graduated from Howard College with a Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy and worked for three years with Eli Lilly as a pharmaceutical representative, but something was missing.

“I felt like I could do more than I was doing as a pharmaceutical rep, so I applied to medical school,” Dr. Smith said. “My wife and I really wanted to come back to Lineville, but I wanted to come back here as a doctor. I’m a fourth generation Smith. My great grandfather helped settle the area. This is home.”

In 1966, Dr. Smith came back to Lineville and bought his practice from a physician who wanted to focus more on nursing homes than private medicine. His first day in his new practice was July 1, 1966 – the first day of Medicare.

“I got this survey asking what my office fee was, and I answered truthfully. It was $4, and that stuck with me for another 10 or 12 years because they wouldn’t let me change it. When I first started out it was $2. Can you imagine if I hadn’t changed it?” Dr. Smith laughed.

Since then, Dr. Smith has seen not only his community grow, but also his practice. In 1986, his son, Buddy Smith, M.D., joined the practice.

“I grew up going on house calls with Daddy, carrying his doctor’s bag. He did a lot of house calls in the 60s and 70s, and I was impressed with how people treated my father, how he was respected by his patients and the community. There’s a reason why he’s Dr. Smith and I’m Dr. Buddy. There’s only one Dr. Smith. He’s a legend,” Dr. Buddy said.

Dr. Buddy said one of the things that has contributed to the longevity of the practice, given that it is not affiliated with a large hospital or company, is its reputation largely due to his father. With patients willing to drive up to 50 miles to visit the clinic, and some patients who have been with the clinic since the beginning, there’s something to be said for small town reputations.

“In a small town, everyone knows you,” Dr. Buddy said, “so it’s important to remember why we’re here. We have patients who come a long way to see us because of our reputation. The patients are the reason why we’ve been in practice here for so long. We never forget why we’re here.”

And, that’s just one of the reasons why Dr. Buddy’s daughter, Ashley Smith Lane, M.D., joined the practice in October 2016. Dr. Smith’s Lineville Clinic officially became a family affair with three generations of physicians practicing under the same roof.

“I grew up here and already knew a lot of the people,” Dr. Lane said. “This is a great, established practice, and having these two, amazing mentors during a time when medicine is changing so quickly definitely makes being a young practicing physician a bit easier.”

Dr. Lane said she was prepared for a bit of inconvenience after finishing her residency in Huntsville, where tapping into the medical pool for specialty consults was as easy as picking up a phone. But, her heart was calling her back to Lineville…back to her home.

“Being a young doctor today is already complicated by all the changing rules and regulations, but add in being in a rural setting makes it more complicated because we don’t have the ease of getting our patients to the proper specialists as quickly as we would like,” Dr. Lane explained. “Coming from my residency in Huntsville where all the specialists were pretty much right there at our fingertips to a rural situation that allowed me to be a more well-rounded family doctor…it’s fulfilling and challenging all at the same time. I knew in residency I wanted to come back home, and I knew I would need these skills when I came back here. I loved my time in Huntsville, but this is home.”

Part of what Dr. Lane said she loves about practicing with her father and grandfather is the true partnership she has in the practice.

“It’s been a lot of fun working with both my father and grandfather – it’s actually pretty cool! Of course I’m learning a lot from them, but they also let me do my own thing and be myself. That means a lot, too, to allow me to be myself in the practice as a partner,” she said.

Together, the trio face the challenges of medicine together.

“We have to balance the demands of a health care system with a rural small business. And, everything is more difficult when you’re in a rural setting from communication to referrals to transportation…it’s all challenging,” Dr. Buddy explained. “The biggest challenge is to incorporate all the changes in medicine, such as MACRA, MIPS, advanced payment models, quality incentives, into an independent practice in a rural setting when none of them necessarily translate to my situation. These new rules are written for large practices with large IT departments, not small practices or independent practices like ours. It’s a huge challenge to try to meet these guidelines when you don’t have these resources. It takes more and more of my time away from patient care to do these other things. I would say now it’s 50/50 split between sitting at a computer and sitting with a patient. It’s about equal when we should be caring for our patients more than working computers.”

Another change? Alabama’s prescription drug abuse problem. It’s an issue Dr. Buddy was willing to tackle as one of the architects of the Medical Association’s Opioid Prescribing education course.

“We could see the need was growing because of the lack of prescribing education among our physicians. It was a need that had to be addressed, so we created the Opioid Prescribing Course,” Dr. Buddy said. “Doctors were closing their doors and quitting their practices because of what they were seeing happen in their communities. We needed to find a way to educate our doctors so they could keep their doors open and understand how to prescribe these medications effectively and efficiently. I think we have been successful in educating physicians about the dangers of opioids, but I’m not so sure if we’ve been as successful about continuing to practice pain management. It’s scary out there, but it’s rewarding if done correctly.”

With all the changes in medicine throughout the years, from Medicare to electronic records, Dr. Smith said looking back, he would not have done things any differently.

“I’ve been so happy to do what I do for all these years. It was never about the money. It was always about our patients. I’m sure I could have done better somewhere else, but that’s not why we do what we do, is it? It’s been very rewarding. You know you’ve done some good, and that’s the main thing. I’ve done what I call ‘rounds at the Pig’ at the local Piggly Wiggly where someone might stop me and ask about this or that. I still enjoy stopping to chat,” he laughed.

When Dr. Smith opened the doors of the clinic in 1966, he never expected having three generations of his family practicing medicine under the same shingle, but he can’t hide the smile when you mention his son and granddaughter.

“It’s special,” he said. “I know how rare this kind of thing is, especially for two physicians to choose family medicine and to come back home to a rural practice in a small town…that’s very special.”

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Splash Down in Haiti and Saving Lives with Richard McGlaughlin, M.D.

Posted by admin on November 4, 2016

BIRMINGHAM — It was his love of flying and his intrinsic need to help others that originally led Richard McGlaughlin, M.D., to Haiti in 2010. In January 2010, the small Caribbean country of Haiti had been rocked by a devastating earthquake, and the task of getting supplies to the recovering nation was proving more than just difficult.

Transportation of what life-saving supplies to Haiti by cargo ship was nearly impossible because the ships were unable to get to Port-au-Prince. Dr. McGlaughlin, who owned a small, single-engine aircraft read about the situation on a member’s-forum for the Cirrus Owners & Pilots Association. Bahamas Habitat was asking for volunteers to fly missions to Haiti to transport supplies, so Dr. McGlaughlin loaded up his aircraft with medical supplies for a trip “that has changed my life.”

That was almost seven years ago, and Dr. McGlaughlin has continued making trips to Haiti every year since…including one trip that nearly took his life and that of his daughter.

Dr. McGlaughlin, a gastroenterologist in Birmingham, wasn’t sure what to expect when he first arrived at the makeshift medical camps in Haiti. The one thing he knew for certain was that he was there for a reason.

“It started out as an airplane adventure just bringing in the supplies that were needed. But, the needs of the Haitians were so great, I just couldn’t turn my back,” Dr. McGlaughlin said. “I felt I could make a difference here. I wanted to make a difference.”

For Dr. McGlaughlin, the key wasn’t just to volunteer once in a while. His theory is a little different. He believes that to make a difference, a constant presence is necessary.

“If you apply continual force on a single point more than once, not just over a weekend or two, it can open eyes. Even that wasn’t enough to help the Haitians. We would give them medicine and treat their wounds, but medicine runs out and sometimes wounds don’t heal, so visiting just once in a while wasn’t working the way we wanted it to. We knew the Haitians needed more,” Dr. McGlaughlin said.

When a cholera outbreak began to ravage the residents, Dr. McGlaughlin, whose background is in cholera research and treatment, found himself more useful than ever. He began working with St. Luke’s Hospital to not only treat the Haitians infected with cholera, but also help train other aid workers in the treatment protocols.

Soon Dr. McGlaughlin met a very charismatic Catholic priest named Father Rick Frechette, CP, D.O. Father Rick has worked in Haiti through St. Luke’s Hospital for more than 30 years, and when the two met, Dr. McGlaughlin was amazed by just what Father Rick had managed to do so much with so little.

“Father Rick is the type of person who makes you want to be a better person,” Dr. McGlaughlin said. “He finds these resources, these people that need work, and the people at the camp need certain things, and Father Rick just finds ways to put them together. He’s built a community through connections, given work and jobs to those who need it…it’s amazing to be part of that,” Dr. McGlaughlin said.

When Dr. McGlaughlin first started working with St. Luke’s, he likened the atmosphere to a smaller version of the United Nations with volunteers from many nations pooling their resources together. Everyone lived in tents, ate together, and unfortunately worked in less-than-the-best medical circumstances.

Eventually, the need for more permanent facilities became apparent, but without funding, because this is a charity operation, the permanent facilities would most likely take a while. So, Father Rick did what he did best and used the resources he had at hand – cargo containers.

After the earthquake in 2010, supplies had been shipped in to Haiti by cargo ships and housed in large, metal cargo containers. When the containers were emptied, they had served their purpose, for the moment. When Dr. McGlaughlin told Father Rick more permanent facilities were necessary for the more complicated and urgent cases needing some semblance of a sterile environment until a proper facility could be built, Father Rick produced a solution.

“We built a container hospital,” Dr. McGlaughlin laughed! “And, it worked for what we needed at the time. You use what you have, and that’s what we had.”

Dr. McGlaughlin continues to fly to Haiti, lending his medical skills and his flying expertise to the people of Haiti he has come to know and love. One flight stands out more than any other. In January 2012, he and his daughter, Elaine, were about to leave the Miami airport when he suggested she purchase a camera. This would be her first trip to Haiti with him, and he knew she would want to document the occasion. When she returned with a small, disposable camera, Dr. McGlaughlin laughed and suggested she try again with a better camera.

“It was a beautiful day for a flight,” he laughed. “You couldn’t have asked for more perfect conditions for flying…until I noticed the oil pressure was dropping. I didn’t want to alarm Elaine. She wasn’t paying much attention to me. She was studying the book for her new camera, but she finally looked at me when she noticed my voice changed.”

Dr. McGlaughlin said they didn’t have much time once the oil pressure sharply dropped, seizing the engine, and freezing the propeller. His plane was equipped with a parachute, which is now standard on all Cirrus models. With the parachute engaged, the pair had enough time to get out of the aircraft before it was too late. As they sat in the life raft, they watched the medicine and equipment floating to the surface, but they were safe. Then the disposable – waterproof – camera floated up. It wasn’t what they expected, but they made good use of it.

“It happened, and it could have been so much worse. So much worse,” Dr. McGlaughlin said shaking his head. “But, it wasn’t. Elaine and I flew back to Haiti together and finished the trip. I’ve even lectured on behalf of the use of the plane’s parachute. Some pilots won’t use it. It’s there…use it. I’m here today because I did.”

Father Rick, Dr. McGlaughlin and the battalion of volunteers attached to St. Luke’s Hospital in Haiti continue to work in Haiti by building schools and rendering medical aid to residents day in and day out. Dr. McGlaughlin’s next scheduled visit will be in January 2017, and he plans to take as many donated items as his plane will hold.

However, St. Luke’s Hospital is in great need of donations. The physicians and other volunteers donate of their time and skills, but monetary donations can move mountains. If you would like to donate and be a part of the St. Luke’s Hospital movement in Haiti, visit St. Luke’s Foundation for Haiti at www.stlukehaiti.org.

Photos courtesy of Dr. Richard McGlaughlin

Tags: cholera, gastro, haiti, mclaughlin

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Reading Gives You Wings with Marsha Raulerson, M.D.

Posted by admin on October 4, 2016

BREWTON — According to Dr. Seuss in I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go.” That’s a philosophy Brewton pediatrician Marsha Raulerson can easily get behind.

For more than 30 years, Dr. Raulerson has celebrated her young patients and encouraged their sense of adventure through reading by providing them with new books during their visits to her clinic. What began as the STARS program, or Steps to Achieve Reading Success, has for the past 20 years been affiliated with the National Reach Out and Read Program. Ten years ago, Dr. Raulerson, working with Polly McClure, launched the Alabama Chapter, American Academy of Pediatrics’ Reach Out and Read Alabama, that gives young children a foundation for success by incorporating books into pediatric care and encouraging families to read aloud together.

“We’ve given out truckloads of books to our patients,” Dr. Raulerson said. “I give a book to every child for every visit, no matter what the age of the child. My community probably contributes about $10,000 a year so we can buy new books because every patient can have a new book.”

In fact, no child who visits Dr. Raulerson’s clinic leaves empty handed. The books she chooses for her patients are not only age appropriate, but also story appropriate to each patient’s particular situation. The majority of her patients have special needs, and each book is intended to give her patients hope.

“I was a reading specialist before I went to medical school, and I would give books to my patients when I was a resident at the University of Florida. I’ve been giving books away since 1978, so my whole career, really. My feeling is that if you can read, you can do anything. I tell my patients that I majored in English in college, not science or math. But, when I went to medical school and had to take biology and chemistry, I could never have done that without the ability to read. If you can read, you can do anything you want!”

Dr. Raulerson laughed when she first realized how long she had been practicing in Brewton, and how many patients had come through her clinic. She shook her head and smiled an easy smile when she admitted that it didn’t initially dawn on her just how many generations of patients she had treated.

“I have grand-patients!” she laughed! “I have a lot of families of three generations of patients, and I remember them all. All my patients are so special to me, and they’ve all received so many books from the clinic. Now, when they tell me that those books helped to create a special bond with their children and grandchildren, that’s heartwarming.”

Given her years of advocacy for children, it’s difficult to imagine the landscape of medicine in Alabama without Dr. Raulerson, but she in fact very nearly did not get accepted into medical school. A native of Jacksonville, Fla., she took her qualifying exams for her doctorate when she ultimately settled on medical school. While she said she felt she was always meant to be a medical doctor, one person sealed the deal for her. Her name was Robbie.

Dr. Raulerson taught school to help put her husband through medical school, and then her husband was drafted and sent to Vietnam. While there, the Raulersons decided to adopt a Vietnamese child. When her husband found the youngest female child in the nursery of an orphanage, he knew this was their child. She was only a few weeks old. The Catholic priest agreed to the adoption to the Baptist couple, and Dr. Raulerson flew to Tokyo to meet her daughter, Robbie.

When Dr. Raulerson got home with Robbie, she was 5 months old and weighed only 8 lbs., was malnourished and very ill. She knew exactly what to do to take care of her daughter, but if any doubt was left as to whether she could be a physician, she wouldn’t doubt much longer. Dr. Raulerson said when she began applying to medical school, she knew the odds would not be in her favor. It was a time when there were not many women in the medical field, and she had a family. Every school she applied to turned her down, except one.

“I was accepted at Emory because of Robbie. They had a different way of interviewing at Emory. They would interview three applicants sitting at a long table. Each applicant was asked what was an event in your life that was really important. There was a football player at the end of the table that talked about being a quarterback. The other girl at the table talked about being homecoming queen. Then they asked me,” Dr. Raulerson paused. The story hanging in her throat fighting to get free. “I told them about when I saw my daughter for the first time. And, I got a telegram that night admitting me to Emory.”

Ironically, Dr. Raulerson transferred to one of the schools that initially rejected her application. Dr. Raulerson’s husband was already a standout fellow at the University of Florida, and his department petitioned the admissions committee to consider an applicant from Emory. She still laughs when she tells the story of being admitted to a school that initially rejected her because she had a family.

Many in Alabama haven’t had the pleasure of meeting this woman who loves to laugh and read to her patients. But after her work with the #IAmMedicaid social media campaign this spring, more people in the state definitely know her name. She estimates between 70 and 80 percent of her patients are Alabama Medicaid recipients, and many of the children in the campaign are her patients. In the end, BP oil money was partially used to reinstate the physician cut that was implemented on Aug. 1 and to shore up the embattled Medicaid budget. Still, according to Dr. Raulerson, it won’t be enough.

“That campaign had to work. It had no choice BUT to work,” she said. “Many of my patients’ families can’t pay their bills. We don’t have enough doctors now, so what happens when we can’t fund the ones who choose to stay? The system is broken.”

During the Regular and Special Legislative Sessions, Dr. Raulerson’s editorials about the importance of fully funding Alabama Medicaid appeared in many of the state’s newspapers. Although the Alabama Legislature is not in session today, there is still work that can, and should, be done, according to Dr. Raulerson.

Perhaps it’s because of her and her husband’s early struggles with starting their own family, or seeing so many of their patients live below the poverty level in Escambia County. Either way, as long as Dr. Raulerson can string together her outspoken words, the children of Alabama will always have another advocate.

“I’m doing a lot more writing now,” she explained. “I feel like I have to. An article I wrote in 1997 about the importance of fully funding Medicaid is just as important today as it was 20 years ago. Nothing has really changed in all that time other than the number of our patients on Medicaid. Something has to change. We have to change. We have to choose to support our kids.”

Dr. Raulerson is a past president of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama, the Alabama Chapter, American Academy of Pediatrics, and VOICES for Alabama’s Children. She is a board member of The Children’s First Foundation.

Tags: child, Medicaid, raulerson, read

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Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer!

Posted by admin on September 29, 2016

TUSCALOOSA – Jimmy Robinson, M.D., was the first Primary Care sports medicine-trained physician in the State of Alabama. One could say he’s seen a thing or two over the years.

Originally from New Orleans and a graduate of LSU, when Dr. Robinson first came to The University of Alabama, he faced a tough crowd but quickly found a new home.

“I came to The University of Alabama on a rotation as a medical student and realized just how strong the family medicine program was here. I knew right then this was where I wanted to come. It was an ideal family practice program. It had a little bit of everything I wanted from pediatrics to surgery…just everything. There were students from all over the country here for the same reason I was, and we all took advantage of that. We learned from each other. The things we can learn from each other, from other programs and places, is really amazing and should never be discounted,” Dr. Robinson said.

Dr. Robinson said he feels he was truly in on the infancy of sports medicine as a growing field as his work with the Crimson Tide continued in those early days. During his second year of his residency, he chose the one elective that changed the course of his career.

“There was one elective in sports medicine under Dr. Bill deShazo, who our sports medicine clinic is now named for here on campus. Before Dr. deShazo started with the Family Practice program he was with Student Health where he started taking care of the teams under Coach Bear Bryant. I spent a whole month on this sports medicine rotation without hardly ever seeing Dr. deShazo!” Dr. Robinson laughed. “Instead, I did everything the athletic trainers needed me to do. Every day during August practice, doing everything I could. Wrapping sprains, doing x-rays, whatever was needed, I did it. There were no other residents who wanted to do sports medicine, so when my rotation was up, I just kept going back, still doing whatever was needed, even if it was just evaluating a player who had a cold. I was happy with that.”

Eventually, the time came when Dr. Robinson decided to further his training in Sports Medicine by doing a Fellowship in Primary Care Sports Medicine. It wasn’t easy to find a program that would now meet the medical standards set at the Capstone. When he finally found that program, it was at The Cleveland Clinic where he trained with “two of the best sports medicine physicians in the country. We took care of the Cavaliers, Browns, Indians, and the high school football and hockey teams in the area. It was a lot of fun, and I never thought I would be working with hockey players, especially. Working with players that eventually went on to play professionally was very special to me. Keeping them healthy and watching them get to that level gives you a great sense of a job well done on your part as their physician.”

Still, sports medicine was not yet considered a true medical specialty and had a long way to go to get there. But, the best was yet to come.

“When I got the call to come back to Tuscaloosa, I think I accepted in about a nanosecond!” Dr. Robinson laughed. He was heading back to a city and campus he had fallen in love with years ago. He opened his practice in August 1989, and he knew that he had big shoes to fill. All eyes would be on him and his staff to take care of more than 500 student-athletes carrying on the Crimson Tide athletic tradition. But, Dr. Robinson had much more planned for his team.

As the medical director for all the athletic trainers at DCH Regional Medical Center, located just on the edge of the campus, Dr. Robinson and about 14 athletic trainers cover the city and county schools and hold injury clinics on Saturday mornings. Yes…that’s game day morning.

But, when the Tide rolls, everything else fades away.

“You’re so focused on the game and the players that everything just stops,” Dr. Robinson said. “The first thing I teach our Fellows and residents is that you are a physician first and a fan last. So all your decisions and all your actions have to be as a physician first, not as a fan…and that’s regardless whether it’s the first game, a homecoming game, or the National Championship game. It doesn’t matter. You cannot be a fan and take care of these players at the same time. You have to focus on the game, but not to watch the plays. You’re watching for injuries as they happen. There have been many times when an injury happened, and I was on the field before the play was called down. When you’re watching the plays for injuries as they happen, you’ll know if the player has a severe head or spinal injury, and you’ll know more about what to expect when you get to him. When you can see how the player hits the ground, you can anticipate what’s going to happen next. Believe me, I drive my wife crazy because I can’t just watch a game because I’m watching that game to make sure the players are safe.”

It’s easy to say that in Dr. Robinson’s 30-year career in sports medicine, he’s seen some horrible injuries. From fractures, concussions, paralysis, even Tyrone Prothro’s broken ankle in 2005, but nothing compares to the devastation of Wednesday, April 27, 2011. Known as the 2011 Super Outbreak, the Tuscaloosa–Birmingham tornado was a large and violent EF4 multiple-vortex tornado that devastated portions of Tuscaloosa and Birmingham during the late afternoon and early evening hours. The Tuscaloosa–Birmingham tornado was one of the 362 tornadoes that day, which was the largest tornado outbreak in United States history. The tornado reached a maximum path width of 1.5 miles during its track through Tuscaloosa, and attained estimated winds of 190 mph shortly after passing through the city.

Dr. Robinson was there. He was just across the river in Northport and had closed his practice at noon so his staff could get their children out of school. When he got home, his power was out. Because he was across the river from the direct path of the monster twister, he was unaware of the true devastation it caused…until he received a phone call.

“A friend of mine from Birmingham called and said that DCH had a direct hit from the tornado. I got across the river to DCH as fast as I could, but I was coming from the opposite direction from where the real damage was to the city. I couldn’t see just how bad it really was. When I got to DCH, the hospital wasn’t that bad, but the city was in trouble, as we later found out and could see from the news coverage,” Dr. Robinson said. “For a good long time, I was the only physician trained in musculoskeletal medicine working in the ER. We had everything from cuts and scrapes to amputations and surgeries to come through that day. It was a hard day.”

That day, one of the Crimson Tide players, long snapper Carson Tinker, was a patient in the ER, and he kept asking Dr. Robinson to find his girlfriend. Tinker and his girlfriend had huddled together at Tinker’s home during the storm. Dr. Robinson searched the hospital’s triage areas to no avail well into the night. He wasn’t the one that had to tell Tinker that she was one of the storm’s 52 casualties, but he was there for him.

“Of course, I feel a kinship with these players,” Dr. Robinson said. “They’re my patients first, always first, but a friendship develops, too. That’s something special.”

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It’s Great to Be an Auburn Tiger!

Posted by admin on September 27, 2016

AUBURN – Mike Goodlett grew up in Moulton, Ala., dreaming of being a sports star…or at least being able to hit a home run or run for a touchdown. That life wasn’t meant for him. Little did he know such a humble beginning would lead him to The Plains as the team physician for the Auburn Tigers.

“I was a very asthmatic child,” Dr. Goodlett explained. “Had my mother not been a nurse, I probably would have died several times before I was 12 years old. One night I was already pronounced dead in the emergency room when my mother called Dr. Robert Rhyne to the hospital. Dr. Rhyne came into the room and squirted some epinephrine down my tube and saved my life. I wouldn’t wheeze very much. I’d just turn black. The resident on call in the ER looked at my color and decided I was already gone. Dr. Rhyne saved my life that night.”

Dr. Goodlett never forgot that night in the emergency room, or Dr. Rhyne Years later, after tearing his ACL, he found himself in the famed Hughston Clinic for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine and in the care of Dr. Jack Hughston. Now, his path was set.

“I had always wanted to play sports. And, ending up in Dr. Jack Hughston’s clinic…I just thought he was so cool! I really wanted to be a combination of Dr. Robert Rhyne and Dr. Jack Hughston. I wanted to be able to do what they did every day!” He laughed. “So, I did.”

Dr. Goodlett went to the University of South Alabama College of Medicine, and he specialized in family medicine at UAB affiliated Gadsden Baptist Memorial Hospital. He worked with Drs. James Andrews and Lawrence Lemak to gain expertise in sports medicine. In 1993 while en route to a family vacation, he got the surprise of a lifetime delivered in the most unusual way.

“My family and I were driving to Destin for a vacation when we were stopped by a State Trooper,” Dr. Goodlett said. “He said he didn’t know who I was but handed me a piece of paper and asked me to call the number on it. That’s how I found out we had just gotten the Auburn Tigers job. There went our vacation that summer, but what a trade off!”

Dr. Goodlett wasn’t exactly sure just how much his life was about to change that day, but he knew one thing was certain…change it would. He was about to become the team physician for about 600 athletes in all 21 of Auburn’s athletic programs. For the first 22 years, he was the only full-time physician. Now, there are two more full-time partners that are also VCOM professors and sports-trained physicians as well as a fellow.

“Every day has been an adventure since that first day. It has been a true pleasure taking care of these student athletes. It’s a unique practice to say the least,” Dr. Goodlett said.

While he doesn’t necessarily travel with the team to every away game, there is a lot of behind the scenes safety preparations that go on between Dr. Goodlett’s staff and the medical staff of the opposing team. There are no secrets here. The conversation is always about safety, or a “medical time out.” Procedures are discussed to make sure everyone is comfortable with equipment, entrances, exits, use of the medical cart, etc. Then, it’s game time.

The roar of the crowded stadium is nothing compared to the adrenaline pumping through the veins of the players, staff and media on the sidelines. As the players don their helmets and rush the field, it’s game on for the Auburn Tigers, but for Dr. Goodlett those aren’t players on the field. Those aren’t fans in the stands. Those aren’t officials on the sidelines. Those are patients.

“About four years ago, they put a heart rate monitor on me. Before the game, my heart rate was like 140, but when the game started it was like 60. To me, it’s one player, one patient. Everything slows down on the field during the game, and I just have to take care of that patient. When a player goes down, it’s stark silent in the stadium. That’s scary. But, I’m constantly talking. The trainers tell me I’m constantly talking to my sports medicine team and to the patient. It’s all about the patient. You never know what you’re going to find when you get to that player. Sometimes when a player goes down on the other sideline, because of the slope of the field, you don’t have a visual or you didn’t get to see the play, you don’t know exactly what you’re going to find when you get across the field,” Dr. Goodlett said.

In 1996 when fire broke out just outside Jordan-Hare Stadium, Dr. Goodlett’s medical team rendered aid to the fans and firefighters affected by the smoke and flames. Dr. Goodlett said had the wind shifted drawing the flames, smoke and debris into the crowded stadium, disaster would have overtaken the day’s festivities in just a few minutes in what he called “one of the scariest days I’ve ever worked at the stadium.”

In the field of sports medicine, there are as many challenges as rewards. Dr. Goodlett said the most difficult part of his job is to disqualify a player because of an injury. Players want to play and sometimes feel that’s why they are there. But, with the awareness of sports injuries becoming more prevalent, players are coming around to more of an advocacy point of view by policing themselves better for healthier play.

“I always feel bad to a degree if I have to disqualify a player because of an injury or because of health reasons, but ultimately it’s for that player’s health. On the other hand, the most rewarding part of my job is when former players come back and say thanks for taking care of me during those times. That means so much to me!” Dr. Goodlett said.

Dr. Goodlett’s legacy with Auburn University will also be felt in the classroom. He was one of the original individuals approached by Auburn University President Jay Gouge in the early stages of the creation of the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine – Auburn Campus.

“I’m very proud to be one of the three individuals that President Gouge enlisted to assist him in the creation of VCOM at Auburn. It’s incredibly important these medical students are exposed to rural settings and are trained in the State of Alabama, so hopefully some of them will want to stay in rural Alabama. This is an opportunity to keep our young physicians here in Alabama, and I’m very happy to be a part of it,” Dr. Goodlett said.

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