L.V. Stabler Memorial Hospital refines physician hiring process

Published 9:44 am Thursday, May 3, 2018

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Last Thursday, L.V. Stabler Memorial Hospital administrators and physicians welcomed Megan Gibson, a medical student looking to work as a general practitioner, to the hospital and the Greenville community.

Gibson, along with her husband, Lamar, are originally from Crenshaw County, and hospital officials brought together veteran physicians and city representatives to greet the two and show them what the Greenville-based hospital and city has to offer.

The tour represents the first of a revamped recruiting process that the hospital is undertaking.

Email newsletter signup

“The expectation is that UAB will be able to help in the recruiting process, especially in the residency programs throughout the state and the rural healthcare programs that the state (is) putting in place,” L.V. Stabler marketing director David Norrell said.

The UAB rural medical program is, according to a website concerning the program, designed to “develop primary care doctors for rural America.”

“We’ve always done recruiting and visitations, but we’re seeing more of a commitment from the residency programs rather than counting on recruiting firms or in the past when we were owned and operated by a corporation,” Norrell said.

Also in attendance were City of Greenville Mayor Dexter McLendon and Chamber of Commerce Director Tracy Salter, who took the Gibson’s on a tour of Greenville, as well as Butler County Schools Superintendent Dr. John Stryker.

Norrell said the hospital is looking to recruit all types of physicians to meet the needs of the community and build trust.

“We’d like to meet as many of the healthcare needs as we can,” he said. “You need primary care physicians to refer to the specialists, they ‘feed’ the specialists. What we and UAB are committed to doing is ‘how can we keep and take care of more patients right here?’ We need the community to trust us, and that’s where bringing hometown physicians, and committing to bringing in good doctors – not just doctors, but good doctors – that want to be in our community and stay here.”

L.V. Stabler has several more physician visits planned for the near future, including doctors from Greenville and the surrounding areas.