By David Sher
I’m writing this column for one reason.
This piece is for the folks who take Birmingham’s strengths for granted and feel we’re falling behind Huntsville.
Let me say this clearly from the start: Huntsville is a remarkable American success story.
Its economic growth, population boom, and emergence as an aerospace powerhouse deserve every ounce of praise they receive.
Nothing I’m about to write diminishes that. I have the greatest respect for what Huntsville has built.
My Personal Story
In the year 2000, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. Twenty-five years later, her cancer is still in remission.
I am totally convinced that if we had not lived in Birmingham — with UAB and its world-class oncology program — I would have been a widower.
Now, as my wife and I grow older, our need for exceptional healthcare has deepened. I’ve recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer and a leaky heart valve.
Thanks to Birmingham and UAB, I have access to one of the most respected prostate cancer specialists and one of the finest cardiac valve surgeons anywhere in the country.
My wife, too, faces her own health challenges — and she, like me, has access to physicians who are among the best in the world.
The Question we’re Constantly Asked
Here’s something that tells the story better than any statistic.
When we visit Kirklin Clinic someone inevitably asks, “Where are you from?”
When we tell them we live in Vestavia only a few minutes away, they are often surprised, because they treat people who come to Birmingham from across the state, the region, and the entire United States.
Birmingham is a National Healthcare Leader
UAB Hospital is the fifth largest hospital in the US., and the only hospital in Alabama currently designated as a Level 1 Adult Trauma Center.
UAB Medicine consistently ranks among the nation’s top academic medical centers, recognized year after year by U.S. News & World Report across multiple specialties — including cancer, cardiology, nephrology, and rheumatology.
Children’s of Alabama is ranked as one of the ten busiest and the 3rd largest pediatric medical facility in the nation. It provides specialized care across dozens of pediatric disciplines — from complex cardiac surgery and pediatric cancer to neurology and rare genetic disorders.
It’s the only hospital in Alabama dedicated exclusively to the care of children, and families travel from across the Southeast trusting it with their most precious responsibility.
Grandview Medical Center and Baptist Health add another dimension of world-class specialty care for our community, and a deep network of research institutions, clinical trials, and specialist physicians ensures that Birmingham punches far above its weight for a city our size.
This isn’t an accident. For decades, Birmingham has made a deliberate, sustained investment in medical excellence — and it shows in the outcomes, the rankings, and the patients who travel here from hundreds of miles away.
Healthcare Woven into the Fabric of Birmingham
Atlanta, Nashville, Austin, and Charlotte are all booming Sun Belt cities — dynamic, growing, and increasingly competitive. Each has strong hospital systems. But when it comes to the depth of academic medical research, specialty care, and nationally ranked programs, Birmingham holds its own — and often leads.
Atlanta has Emory and Grady, excellent institutions. But Birmingham’s concentration of specialized care per capita is remarkable for a city our size.
Nashville has Vanderbilt, a powerhouse — though Birmingham’s medical community rivals it in several key disciplines, including cancer and transplant medicine.
Austin, for all its explosive growth, is still developing the healthcare infrastructure its population demands.
Charlotte, too, has grown faster than its medical system has kept pace.
What Birmingham offers that these cities are still building is depth — decades of research, physician training, clinical trial access, and subspecialty expertise woven into the fabric of the city.
When Your Life or Someone You Love is on the Line…
Economic growth is important.
Jobs, investment and population growth all matter.
Huntsville is winning on those metrics, and good for them.
But when you strip everything else away — when the question isn’t about which city is growing fastest but about where you want to be when your life or the life of someone you love is on the line — the answer, for me, is clear.
When it comes to life and death, me and my family are glad to be here in Birmingham.
David Sher is the founder and publisher of ComebackTown. He’s past Chairman of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce (BBA), Operation New Birmingham (REV Birmingham), and the City Action Partnership (CAP).
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Invite David to speak for free to your group about how we can have a more prosperous metro Birmingham. dsher@comebacktown.com
I’m sure you didn’t intend to compare healthcare in Huntsville vs. that in Birmingham. But your headline suggested your article was about to do exactly that. Perhaps one of your readers who lives in the Rocket City can tell us? All I can say from personal experience dates from 40 years ago. During our two years in Huntsville, my wife worked as a registered nurse at one of the city’s two main hospitals. Without naming it, I can tell you that she was very unimpressed, having worked at Atlanta’s outstanding Shepherd Spinal Center before then. I’m sure healthcare in Huntsville has improved enormously. After we moved to Birmingham, she used her nursing training to work in managed care at insurance companies, not in clinical settings. We relied more on Brookwood than UAB for our healthcare. So overall our experience with UAB was and is limited. It’s important to remember that in the case of booming Huntsville—and the other cities you mention—many of the new residents are young people who don’t share the high priority on healthcare that we Boomers do. Yet if their senior parents are considering relocating to be near grandchildren, those seniors’ opinions and needs regarding healthcare can make a big difference in their decision.
Living in Nashville today, I can certainly attest to the outstanding care we’ve received at Vanderbilt (where our psychiatric nurse practitioner and her psychiatrist husband work), but also at St. Thomas and Centennial. So the city has multiple options—as does Birmingham. Thank you for pointing out how valuable good healthcare is to the economic vitality of all the Sunbelt cities.
Thursday, April 2, 2026
Yeah and if you lived in Baltimore, Maryland, you’d have immediate access to one of the best health care services in the country : Johns Hopkins Hospt. & the University of Maryland.
And if you lived in Rochester, Minnesota, you’d have access to Mayo’s headquarter Clinic.
Wow.
So what’s your point ?
Neither Birmingham nor Huntsville…nor Atlanta…comes even close to the above.
May I suggest you getz yer geo-boots firmly grounded.
…40 years ago huh ?
Your “personal experience” from “40 years ago”…
40 years ago ???
Your joking, right ?
~ Ballard from Huntsville
Why such an agitated response? I clearly stated 40 years ago as a preface to explaining our limited experience with healthcare in Huntsville. I asked for someone from there to tell us what it’s like there today. You didn’t.
As for Mayo, we used Mayo Jacksonville for a couple of years while living in St. Augustine—only twelve years ago in this case. Nice facility. Average care. Do you fly to Minnesota for your annual checkup?
As for Johns Hopkins, our psychiatrist son-in-law earned his MD there. He can certainly attest to its quality. But he daily praises Vanderbilt, where he practices today. He vouches for UAB too. He would never say we need to travel to Baltimore, Rochester, or Boston (he had a stint at Mass General) even for specialized care. If you look at the US News rankings, it doesn’t do an actual national ranking, say 1-100, for entire hospitals, only specialties. Our nurse practitioner daughter, who practices with him at Vanderbilt, gave birth to their first child and our first grandchild at VU Medical Center yesterday. We detected no deficiencies whatsoever in the OB-GYN department.
Be thankful you live halfway between Nashville and Birmingham, where you can receive world-class healthcare in either city. Unless you will respond to my question and tell us that everything medical is copacetic in Huntsville.
David, I’m afraid that your columns often sound overly defensive about the recent success of Huntsville. I follow “Comeback Town” and, frankly, am tired of reading about Huntsville there. I lived in Huntsville for work for nineteen years and can assure you that, to me at least, Birmingham has nothing to worry about in terms of what defines a real city where Huntsville is concerned. If you move beyond tech and the military, Huntsville is sorely lacking on every front. Despite its population growth and misleading designation as Alabama’s “largest city,” we need to keep our perspective here and dwell less on the assets of Huntsville and more on the progress of Birmingham and the metro that depends on it, without feeling a need to compare.
Although I am not a fan of the monolith that UAB has become, I concur that Huntsville’s medical profile leaves much to be desired and appreciate the expertise to be found throughout Birmingham’s hospitals and medical community, which I have utilized for most of my life.
And if I had wanted to hear about Huntsville, I would have stayed there.
Great column David, I couldn’t agree more. I wish for you and your bride a safe and speedy recovery.
Steve, thanks for your kind wishes. We are so fortunate to live in Birmingham.
I’m confused now? I thought you live in Vestavia?
He does. Birmingham is too dangerous for him.
Rob, Birmingham seen a 71% drop in homicides quarter-over-quarter since 2024. https://www.al.com/crime/2026/04/birmingham-homicides-dropping-to-historic-low-in-2026-if-you-kill-somebody-were-going-to-catch-you.html
Hilde, I do live in Vestavia Hills, but if I were in Huntsville or any of the other Sun Belt cities mentioned, and someone asked me where I’m from, I would have said ‘Birmingham’. No one out of the Birmingham regions knows Vestavia. When I say Birmingham, I’m usually talking about the Birmingham region unless I specifically say ‘the City of Birmingham.’
O’Neal Cancer Center UAB was one of five National Institutes of Health established by Nixon’s war on cancer. Today there are 70 +. None of the towns listed have a NIH hospital!
So what? For the most part you can only get treatment under Clinical Trials from a NIH Hospital.
I was treated at O’Neil 8 years ago. Currently in remission at 87.
Have a good friend who was diagnosed with on of the toughest forms of Leukemia 2 years ago. His primary doctor was at MD Anderson. He had the only Clinical Trial for his cancer. Since both hospitals are NIL, He received his treatments and his STEM CELL transplant in Birmingham. I had my treatments and stem cell transplant at O’Neil .
Can’t put into words how grateful I was.
David , three years ago I was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. I have nothing but good things to say about UAB and its medical system. The care it provides is exceptional. This past January I went to MD Anderson for a second opinion. Houston has compressed their hospitals and medical centers into a “district” instead of spreading them across the county. The result has been a lot of hotels, restaurants and transportation systems have sprung up to serve the District. I wonder if something couldn’t be done to facilitate this in Birmingham. We do have an excellent BREMs emergency transport system here which moves emergency patients to the facilities that have the most appropriate treatment available. Birmingham has a gem in its medical facilities
I agree wholeheartedly that Birmingham is the place to be for the best healthcare for a family. I love Birmingham and have always been a cheerleader for it. It is mine and my husband’s hometown. We have lived in several states due to job changes with varying populations in the cities with varying levels in their hospitals and access to healthcare. The last big city we lived in was Houston, Tx. There are so many large hospitals there with many specialties but none are as good as UAB. My husband was in a near fatal auto accident in Houston and was taken to Houston-Herman Hospital Trauma Center. They saved his life and were excellent in his rehabilitation. We spent 30 days in their hospital and we’re grateful, but they did not compare with the excellence of care and multiple choices of Physicians and care centers we find in Birmingham. We’re back home now and have been back since 2000. We are proud to tell everyone Birmingham is our Hometown. We’ve been down in our great city but never out….our people here never say quit, we are truly THE COMEBACK TOWN and we love Birmingham.
Thursday, April 2, 2026
David Sher,
Quote :
“UAB fifth largest hospital in the US.”
Says “Alabama.com”…Wow…
Actually you should be sharing with your readers :
What are the BEST hospitals in the country ?
According to the 2025-2026 U.S. News & World Report Honor Roll, as well as other sources more reliable than “Alabama.com”, neither Birmingham nor Huntsville rate even in the top 20.
You can jumble Internet stats all you want :
The State of Alabama remains way behind the rest of the country when it comes to health care. Period.
Sick folk don’t flock to Alabama to get the best health care.
Surprise, surprise.
And of course, there are a number of other reasons why folk don’t flock to Alabama, but that’s another yap session.
And I would advise anyone not to take a gander of the WORLD’s Best health care centers, because if would depress you.
Mayo beats them all, of course, with but merely a handful more U.S. based hospitals, the entire U.S. medical delivery system looks like the bad boy sitting in the corner with a dunce cap.
So Birmingham, take a deep breath, stay grounded and get real !
~ Ballard from Huntsville