Welcome from the Program Director

At East Alabama Health Internal Medicine Residency Program, we are committed to training excellent internal medicine physicians. Our graduates will be diagnosticians and servants to their communities. They will be formed by the excellent teachers and training environment at East Alabama Health.

To create diagnosticians, we rely on skills that physicians have taught for generations such as a thorough history and physical examination. We also use conferences, didactics, and bedside teaching to expand your knowledge base, so that when you collect data you can correctly understand it. Teaching you to gather and accurately interpret information is a foundation of our program. In addition to these tried-and-true methods, we use newer technologies including bedside point-of-care ultrasound and high-fidelity simulation to augment and enhance the classic tools of the internist. In an ever-changing world, we want to teach and model flexibility, adaptation and improvement.

We serve our patients, yet they are also our best teachers. Caring for the whole patient is another core tenet of internal medicine. We must understand social determinants of health, and the connections between our patients’ minds, bodies, spirits and communities. Providing service to the patients is an incredible gift. Receiving that gift from the people of our community and giving back to them in return will help our graduates be excellent physicians.

What truly makes our program special is the people inside it. We have assembled an incredible core faculty who are devoted to the education and training of our residents. These physicians are teachers first and want you to be exceptional. They come from a diverse set of backgrounds and have a diverse set of interests. Improvement of the program and the education delivered here is at the forefront of their minds. We pursue excellence by creating a learning environment that is constantly improving. Our administrative staff and leadership support the vision of excellence in our program. They are committed to building something that lasts as an example at EAH. In addition, we enjoy broad support and teaching from a range of subspecialists and volunteer faculty. Growth, opportunity, and building are things that excite us here at EAH. We are looking for residents who are committed to lifelong learning and constant improvement.

When people ask me about the strengths of our program my answer is, “Our biggest strength is the residents we currently have.” Our culture has been created by these first few trailblazing classes, and I have been especially privileged to watch its nascent stage. What has formed here is a culture of residents who are committed to caring for their patients, committed to caring for each other, and committed to achieving their goals. Internal medicine is an incredible field. It opens a vast sea of career options. If you choose, there are many subspecialty fellowships to pursue. If you stay general, you can be primarily inpatient, outpatient, or both. You also have flexibility to pursue medical education, public policy and health advocacy, administrative leadership, research, and many other options. We want to create a learning environment that teaches you how to be a world-class internist, but also serves as a launching pad for you to achieve your goals. We are building something incredible here at EAH. Will you come join us?

Nathan T. Douthit, MD

Program Director—East Alabama Health IM Residency Program