For physicians called to broad-spectrum care, deep community presence, and the steady work of rural medicine.
Train where relationships are long, resources matter, and physicians are still woven into the fabric of a community. At Cahaba’s Rural Campus, you’ll learn full-spectrum family medicine in places where continuity is not theoretical… it is daily life. This is a residency for physicians who want more than exposure to rural medicine… they want to become the kind of doctor a community can truly depend on.
Rooted in underserved communities and shaped by close mentorship, our residents grow into capable, adaptable physicians prepared to care for patients across generations and settings. Here, you won’t just build competence… you’ll build steadiness, belonging, and the confidence to practice wherever you are needed most.
Why
Rural?
Our Rural Campus prepares residents to practice broad-spectrum family medicine in communities where trust is earned over time and physicians are called to wear many hats well. Here, you will care for the same patients in the clinic, hospital, emergency room, nursing home, and delivery room… developing the kind of continuity, responsibility, and confidence that only comes through full-scope rural training.
What makes Rural Distinct
Distinctive training for physicians called to underserved communities, complex care, and mission-driven medicine.
Community Anchored Training
Care for patients across every stage of life and every care setting… building deep continuity and long-term relationships within the community.
“YOU’RE NOT JUST CHOOSING A PROGRAM. YOU’RE CHOOSING THE KIND OF DOCTOR YOU’RE BECOMING.”
Legacy of Learners
Train alongside faculty who were once residents here themselves… physicians who chose to stay, teach, and invest in the next generation.
Full-Scope Readiness
Build real-world confidence in inpatient medicine, emergency care, women’s health, procedures, geriatrics, and complex outpatient care.
Train Like You Will Practice
Rural medicine demands adaptability. Our residents learn to provide high-quality care in resource-conscious settings with broad responsibility and meaningful autonomy.
Advocacy & Mission
Join a program shaped around identifying unmet needs in underserved communities and building sustainable ways to meet them with compassion and excellence.
Prepared for the Long Haul
Graduate ready for rural outpatient practice, inpatient medicine, emergency care, OB, geriatrics, direct primary care, VA systems, fellowships, and underserved communities across the country.
Training Beyond Exposure
We do not believe in shallow exposure. We believe physicians become confident through repetition, continuity, responsibility, and presence over time. Rural medicine is not learned through observation alone. It is learned by showing up again and again… for the same patients, the same families, and the same community.
Clinical Excellence
Full-Spectrum Rural Care
Continuity clinic, inpatient medicine, emergency care, nursing home care, and women’s health training woven into everyday practice.
Women’s Health & OB
High-volume prenatal care, deliveries, advanced OB opportunities, contraception management, and procedural women’s health.
Procedural Competency
Skin procedures, joint injections, osteopathic recognition, women’s health procedures, inpatient procedures, and resource-conscious decision making.
Continuity Across Settings
Care for the same patients in clinic, the hospital, the nursing home, and labor & delivery… developing uncommon depth of relationship and clinical judgment.
Community-Based Care
Home visits, underserved care, rural outreach, and longitudinal relationships that shape both clinical skill and personal formation.
Inpatient & Emergency Training
Develop confidence managing high-acuity patients in rural inpatient and emergency settings where adaptability and composure matter.
“At Cahaba, the entire organization has been designed around assessing needs in underserved communities and then finding ways to provide competent, compassionate care in those areas, which aligns with my personal goals.”
WHERE OUR GRADUATES GO
Our graduates carry broad-spectrum training into a wide range of settings and fellowships.
Alumni have pursued fellowships and advanced work in…
FM-OB
Behavioral Health
Emergency Medicine
Hospital Medicine
Graduates now serve in…
Rural outpatient clinics
Direct Primary Care
Rural emergency departments
Inpatient medicine
VA systems
Geriatrics
Suburban family medicine
Underserved communities across the country
By The Numbers
Our graduates don't just meet requirements; they exceed them.
1,900
Average Outpatient Encounters
Outpatient Encounters
1,250
Average Inpatient Encounters
Inpatient Encounters
85
Newborn Encounters
Average Newborn Encounters
90+
Deliveries with Advanced OB residents
Vaginal Deliveries
READY TO PUT DOWN ROOTS?
Come train where broad-spectrum medicine, deep community relationships, and steady presence still matter.
Schedule a rotation and experience what it looks like to become rooted and equipped for the long haul.
History
Cahaba Family Medicine Residency started in 2013 as a truly rural full spectrum Family Medicine residency program located in Centreville, AL. The mission of the program is to train residents to provide medical care to children, adults, and elderly, including care throughout pregnancy and delivery so that graduates are equipped to work in rural and international communities, capable of meeting the medical needs of the marginalized. In 2018 CFMR expanded by adding the Urban Track in Birmingham, AL. Currently, there are 4 tracks, Rural, Urban, Frontier and Highlands.
Community
Living in a rural community means that you are a critical part of the medical services available for your neighbors, coworkers and friends. You see your patients as you go for a run or go to a store, or at church. You see an athlete on the field and in the clinic. You recognize familiar faces and know the families they represent. You see need, and have the ability to help meet that need.
CFMR Rural Track surpasses definition as a training program. While working closely together for 3 years incredible bonds are formed between residents that live nearby and support one another. Sincere care for one another, an unyielding team mentality and an appreciation for laughter and fun are fundamental characteristics of our rural program.
Full Scope
Family Medicine
Rural residency training closely approximates long term rural medical practice. Serving patients well in this context means being prepared to meet their procedural needs.
Our mission is to train and equip graduates to work in these environments whether they be in rural, urban or international communities. Recognizing similarities between resource-poor areas domestically and internationally, our residents acquire a tangible and translatable skill set and knowledge base to provide for the needs of patients in inpatient and outpatient settings. Responding to the breadth of knowledge required of a competent Family Medicine physician, our longitudinal curriculum teaches residents to integrate what they are learning on a day by day, patient by patient basis. Understanding that access to thorough prenatal and post delivery care, well child and sick child care dictates the health of Alabama families, Cahaba Family Medicine Residency has devoted significant educational time, effort and resources for residents to meet these patients' needs. Finally, whether it be obtaining their insulin through our Dispensary of Hope, assisting with access to procedural care detailed below or representing our patients' needs in Washington, D.C. working in its various forms is a key element of CFMR Rural Track.
Because of the vast shift of resources and cultural shifts, many rural communities are left with pervasive hopelessness in health.
For these reasons and more it’s been said that rural America is the new inner city, and these areas are arguably the most marginalized areas of the United States. Our rural track is based out of Centreville, AL in a region known as the “Black Belt,” a severely economically depressed region with rich black soil that previously was the sight of wealthy white planters and enslaved black persons. For several decades now, The Health Care System has been Leaving the Southern Black Belt Behind.
This is the context in which Cahaba Medical Care was born in 2004. Long before the residency program began we were striving to promote community health for our neighbors. Over the years we have been able to expand to other communities, with many milestones along the way like when we bucked the trend of rural hospital L&D closures by helping reopen Bibb County's only L&D, which had been closed for 20 years. Then in 2013 the Cahaba Family Medicine Residency was born. Starting the residency among a population of 5,000 required lots of good old fashioned hard work and innovation. But as our program director, Dr. John Waits, likes to say, “That’s just our game.”
WE DON'T JUST WORK HERE. THIS IS OUR HOME.
Our residency is a fully immersive training program.
The majority of our residents and faculty
choose to live and serve in rural Bibb County.
“Such a special honor to be able to live and serve in a rural community where you are able to connect on a deeper level with your patients, community, and peers.”
Our rural residents truly make a major impact in Bibb County. We provide the only obstetric care in the county, we care for patients in Bibb Medical Center, we staff the county’s subspecialty clinic as well as the nursing home, etc. Our residents truly become full-spectrum rural (or international) family doctors.
Our community engagement extends far beyond our medical involvement.
For instance, through our community center, we are also able to provide other valuable resources that address social determinants of health, including a food bank, clothing, computer skills classes, exercise classes, job retraining, etc. We also work to enhance the physical fitness of our community, with some examples including our collaboration with local government to build a boat launch on the Cahaba River for paddlers, our involvement in bringing cycling services to the county, and the dance studio we sponsor.
