A $10 million gift from Mike and Gillian Goodrich will establish a rural healthcare training program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine.
The gift will establish Goodrich Rural Innovation in Training for Alabama, or GRIT, and underwrite scholarships, provide programmatic support to new rural residency training programs and strengthen rural clinic capacity where training will occur. Once approved by the University of Alabama System board of trustees, the gift will also establish the Goodrich Endowed Chair in Rural Health and Primary Care.
“For a number of years, Gillian and I have been concerned about access to quality healthcare in rural Alabama,” said Mike Goodrich, who was chairman and chief executive of BE&K, an engineering and construction firm. “Small-town hospitals are closing or reducing services to local citizens. We have worked with Dr. Agarwal and his team to develop a comprehensive program that will attract and retain primary care residents and physicians in rural communities.”
Witnessing rural Alabama lose ground for the better part of a generation motivated the Goodriches to collaborate on potential solutions with Anupam Agarwal, M.D., senior vice president for medicine and dean of the UAB Heersink School of Medicine.
“From the start, the Goodrich family shared our concern about growing gaps in access to care across rural Alabama,” Agarwal said. “Through their vision and partnership — and under the leadership of Irfan Asif, M.D., chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine and associate dean of Primary Care and Rural Health at UAB — we have built GRIT into a comprehensive pathway that supports learners from early exposure through training and into practice.”
