Family Practice Resident and Third-Year Medical Student at UA Win 2008 Awards from National Rural Health Association

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – A participant in the Tuscaloosa Family Practice Residency Program and a student in the Rural Health Scholars Program, both arms of The University of Alabama’s College of Community Health Sciences, have won 2008 Rural Health Awards from the National Rural Health Association.

Dr. Deanah Maxwell, a family medicine resident in CCHS, received the Student Leadership Award. The award recognizes extraordinary leadership activities demonstrated by a student in the field of rural health, according to the association’s Web site.

Maxwell, a native of Tuskegee, participated in the UA Rural Health Scholars Program, a CCHS initiative that brings high school students to UA to explore rural-health careers, as an 11th-grader. After graduation from The University of Alabama-Birmingham, she came to UA as a Rural Medical Scholar and medical student at CCHS.

She served as senior class president for CCHS medical students last year, and she has mentored other rural students during her career.

Josh Bell, a third year medical student in UA’s Rural Medical Scholars Program, received the 2008 Student Achievement Award from the association. The award “recognizes extraordinary student initiated and performed activity demonstrated within the field of rural health,” according to the association’s Web site.

Bell was nominated for his recent efforts to help solve problems related to health care in rural Alabama and a specific curriculum need for rural medical education. Bell participated in the 2000 Rural Health Scholars Program as an 11th-grader from Rainsville.

As a UA undergraduate, he was the first student to receive special honors for completing an honors thesis in philosophy.

UA’s Rural Medical Scholars and Rural Health Scholars programs are part of the Rural Health Leaders Pipeline, a series of programs created at UA to find and nurture capable students from rural areas who are interested in becoming physicians and practicing in their hometowns or similar areas. These programs are conducted by UA’s CCHS and The University of Alabama School of Medicine.

The pipeline includes programs for high school, minority, premed and medical students. The pipeline also incorporates summer field work and rural research options for students at all levels, including rural rotations for medical students and physicians in the CCHS family practice residency.