University of Alabama expands health care reach with new Northport clinic

The University of Alabama on Thursday opened the UMC Northport clinic, expanding not only the university's reach in providing family medical care to West Alabama but also expanding the school's ability to train physicians.

The new University Medical Center clinic is at 6205 Jemison Lane in Northport off McFarland Boulevard and offers 28 examination rooms in the 15,000-square-foot building.

Dr. Ricky Friend, dean of the college of community health sciences, said, "We have about 75 medical students with us as a branch campus of UAB, so we need clinical sites to be able to teach those students. We have the third largest residency program in family medicine in the country. We have 16 residents per year working with us and six of those residents will be working here at the Northport site."

The new clinic projects to see about 2,000 patients per month. The clinic will have a full lab, X-ray, ultrasound facilities and will see patients in the fields of geriatrics, pediatrics, family medicine, obstetrics, neurology, psychiatry, social work and internal medicine at the site. The new facility in Northport is the fifth new UMC clinic to open in West Alabama, with the most recent addition being in Livingston.

Friend said the University of Alabama owns 11 acres at the Northport site and hopes to develop the property into a health services plaza that will provide complementary services.

Dr. Cathy Lavender, an attending physician at the Northport site, is one of the physicians who will oversee those who are in residency.

"We are a family medicine residency training program, so we train our physicians to become board certified in family medicine. We also have third- and fourth-year medical students from UAB who will do some of their clinical experiences here with us," Lavender said.

The resident physicians at the new clinic will be doctors who have graduated and passed at least two phases of their board exams. UAB will supply medical students to the program, while the resident physicians are from the University of Alabama.

Lavender said patients should have no concerns about being seen by a resident physician for their health care.

"Patients should feel at ease because these are physicians. They have graduated from medical school, they have passed at least two steps of their boards before they ever become a resident. They have more time to spend with their patients, and they are overseen by attending physicians. We are making sure that they are doing everything by the book. They are using the most current and up-to-date evidence based medicine," Lavender said.

Stuart Bell, president of the University of Alabama, said the opening of off-site health care campuses, often in rural areas, help the university accomplish its mission as well as assisting communities in West Alabama that might not have adequate health care provision for their residents.

"On our sign, when you drive in, (it) says, teaching, research, and service. Facilities like this allow us to do all three of those. This is one way the University of Alabama continues to serve our community by being able to provide that medical care. Everything that we learn here moves us forward in research and in what we are able to provide in the challenges that we face as a community. It's a great thing for the community and a great thing for the university," Bell said.

"A lot of the communities just don't have enough access to quality health care and for the university to be able to help provide a part of it through clinics like this I think is a huge impact," Bell said.

Northport Mayor John Hinton said the city has grown by about 10,000 residents between the 2010 census and the 2020 census and the city continues to grow and with it grow the community's health care needs.

"A clinic like this helps bring in quality people and quality businesses. People are concerned about their health needs and they can meet those needs here because they offer so many different types of remedies, diagnosis and treatment. Northport will benefit in many ways from having this facility here," Hinton said.