Department of Urology established at Whiddon College of Medicine; interim chair appointed

Christopher Keel, D.O., will serve as interim chair of
the new academic department.

USA Health and the Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine have formally established a Department of Urology. The department will expand the educational, research and patient care offerings to patients, students and trainees. Christopher Keel, D.O., an associate professor and urologist at USA Health University Urology, will serve as the interim chair. 

“One of the responsibilities we have as the region’s only academic health system is to provide the medical professionals needed by the people of Alabama and beyond, as well as to create new treatments, cures and preventions,” said John Marymont, M.D., M.B.A., dean of the Whiddon College of Medicine and vice president for medical affairs at USA. “Creation of this department adds to our ability to meet those duties and provide for the citizenry today and tomorrow.”

“The creation of this department is part of USA Health’s efforts to meet the growing healthcare needs of the people in our region,” said Owen Bailey, M.S.H.A., FACHE, chief executive officer of USA Health. “We now will be able to further expand our advanced urological services, while carrying out our missions of research and education.”

Keel said he is excited to lead the newly established department as it helps train medical students in becoming competent physicians and lifelong learners and begins a residency program. “The United States is facing an overall shortage of physicians, especially among medicine specialties such as urology,” he said. “My goal is to prepare third- and fourth-year medical students to enter and succeed in the residency programs of their choice. It is my hope this new department, in turn, will help address the shortage, as medical students discover their niche while matriculating through various clinical rotations.”

“Further, through the formal establishment of the department we will have enhanced research opportunities that will lead to new, better and innovative care that will be available to our patients,” Keel added.

The educational design of the M.D. program is a competency-based curriculum spanning all four years, with the last two years of medical school spent working across USA Health facilities with the goal of expanding the students’ education as they are immersed in full-time patient care. 

Keel, who earned his doctoral degree from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, has served as a urologist at USA Health University Urology since 2017. He completed an internship in general surgery and his residency training in urology at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans. He is board-certified by the American Board of Urology and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. 

The new department comprises urologists from USA Health University Urology – the only urologic clinic in the area backed by the resources of academic medicine – who will serve as assistant and associate professors at the Whiddon College of Medicine, including: Lisa Bailey, M.D.; Kristie Burch, M.D.; Lorie Fleck, M.D.; Robert Mevorach, M.D.; Mariarita Salvitti Fermin, M.D.; William Terry, M.D.; and Austin Younger, M.D.