The Alabama Board of Medical Scholarship Awards (BMSA) is an Alabama legislature program that was created as an incentive to increase the supply of primary care physicians (family practice, internal medicine, and pediatrics) and encourage their practice in the state's rural medically underserved communities. Application for educational loans are available to all students enrolled in medical schools in the State of Alabama. Each loan recipient enters into a contractual agreement with the Board of Medical Scholarship Awards whereby the recipient agrees to practice primary care in a medically underserved community. For default or termination of a loan the recipient is required to repay the principle of the loan plus a penalty of up to 200% of the total principle amount of the loan. The failure of a loan recipient to perform his or her contractual agreement with the Board of Medical Scholarship Awards or to pay the amount he or she is liable for under this program shall constitute a ground for the revocation of his or her license to practice medicine.
The effectiveness of the BMSA educational loan program was evaluated using criteria based on stated intent as expressed in the Alabama legislature and standard metrics for measuring outcomes of educational loans, scholarships and incentives.
BMSA accepted its first recipient in 1984. 188 individuals are currently documented as practicing physicians who have completed their service obligation, or currently serving their obligation, or in the medical school pipeline.
In 2020, 76.8% of BMSA recipients practiced in rural Alabama communities. Approximately 40% of Alabama family medicine residency graduates practice in rural Alabama.
The Office for Family Health Education and Research provides an infrastructure where opportunities for research in education, policy, clinical medicine and other scholarly works in primary care can flourish. The office produces and disseminates practical clinical information to primary care physicians, coordinates and conducts studies that deal with the health care education of primary care physicians and patients, as well as the broader issues of state health policy, health access and health manpower.
The interactive data tables in this site have a number of useful features. A table can be sorted according to any field by clicking on the header corresponding to that field. The search bar can be used to filter the table according to a text string. The buttons at the top allow the table to be printed, copied to the clipboard, or downloaded as an Excel spreadsheet or in tab-separated text format.
The interactive map has navigation features similar to a standard Google map. The map can be moved using tha arrow keys or the mouse, and can be zoomed in or out using the controls or the mouse. Zooming into the map reveals additional geographic layers. The home button returns the map to its original size and orientation.