2021-2022 Chief Medical Residents
Pictured L to R: Drs. Will Morgan, Anne Wagstaff, Lindsey Shipley, and Sal Kamal

The turn of the academic year was greeted with much excitement and optimism in hopes of welcoming a new intern class into many "old traditions" such as in-person conferences, social events, and the general sense of camaraderie that makes the Tinsley Harrison Internal Medicine Residency Program so special. While the Delta surge certainly required us to adapt on the fly (something we are quite used to doing these days), we have remained persistent in our efforts to foster our culture of a tight-knit resident family that enjoys being together in and out of the hospital.

Since the new intern class arrived, we have had our Intern Welcome Picnic, Legacy Dinner, PGY-2 retreat, program outing to the Barons game, Camp Dismukes, and we are back to in-person attendance at teaching conferences. Our amazing new intern class includes 15 women and 25 men from Virginia to Texas, Thailand to Peru. While the last 15 months of their medical school training was disrupted in many ways due to the pandemic, they have shown up as a fun, resilient bunch, and they haven't skipped a beat in providing excellent care alongside our more senior residents!

As should be expected with the ever-evolving graduate medical education landscape, there have been several positive changes to the residency program this year. The largest change has been the adoption of a true CCU service. While the CCU service was previously made up of two resident teams that cared for mixture of CCU and cardiology floor patients, the team is now consolidated to one team that cares for only the critically ill patients housed in the CCU. This transition has been very smooth and well-received thanks to the extensive planning done by Kevin Schwalbach (CMR '20-21) and leadership from Sam McElwee (Cardiology-Critical Care, CMR '13-14). The transition from two to one CCU team has allowed us to add an additional ambulatory month to the PGY-2 schedule as well, which is providing the PGY-2s with very valuable subspecialty outpatient experience during a vital time of career decision-making. We have also started a new program tradition of Intern Bootcamp, which was spearheaded by Lindsey Shipley (CMR '21-22) and Starr Steinhilber (APD, CMR '14-15). This lunch lecture series covers topics such as cross-cover emergencies, calling a consult led by subspecialty fellows, EKG basics led by chief cardiology fellow James Barrios (CMR '18-19), and others.

While there are many benefits of staying around for a chief resident year, perhaps the most underrated aspect is the opportunity to take a year to reflect on what an amazing privilege it is to be a part of this residency program. We know that the program could not be what it is today without the legacy of you all, the alumni, who spent countless hours giving yourself to your patients and one another while at UAB. Standing in the Boshell Diabetes Building hallways and listening to stories of those who have observed the program for many years, such as Tammy Pickens and Hardy Moore, is a constant reminder of how many amazing people have come through this program. This juxtaposition of working daily alongside attendings who have led the program for decades, and interns who have been a part of the family for merely months serves as a constant reminder of the "contagious fire" that Dr. Tinsley Harrison implored us to have for educating the next generation of physicians and leaders.

Sincerely,

SLAW (Sal, Lindsey, Anne, and Will)