15 Medical Programs for High School Students in Birmingham, AL
- Stephen Turban
- 3 minutes ago
- 9 min read
If you are a high school student who wants to pursue medicine, one of the best things you can do is participate in a medical program! Medical programs give you a chance to explore the field, ask professionals questions about their work, and see what kinds of careers exist in healthcare. You might learn basic clinical skills, explore anatomy and physiology, take part in simulations, or work on small research activities. Even a short program can help you decide whether medicine is something you want to keep pursuing.
What medical programs are available for high school students in Birmingham, AL?
Birmingham is a hub for healthcare and medical research, with hospitals, universities, and health organizations that offer programs for high school students. You can explore a range of topics from biomedical science to clinical exposure and public health initiatives. Most programs include guided activities and mentorship, so you learn from professionals who work in the field. A medical program gives you concrete experiences that add depth to your college applications. This can be especially helpful if you want to apply to competitive pre-med undergraduate programs.
Here are 15 medical programs for high school students in Birmingham, AL!
Location: Remote (virtual)
Cost: Varies by the program. Financial aid is available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective
Dates: Multiple cohorts throughout the year (including June – August, September – December, December – February, March – June)
Application Deadline: January, May, September, November (by cohort)
Eligibility: High school students with strong academic records
The Lumiere Research Scholar Program is a rigorous research program tailored for high school students. The program offers extensive 1-on-1 research opportunities for high school students across a broad range of subject areas that you can explore as a high schooler. The program pairs high school students with Ph.D. mentors to work 1-on-1 on an independent research project. At the end of the 12-week program, you’ll have developed an independent research paper! You can choose research topics from subjects such as psychology, physics, economics, data science, computer science, engineering, chemistry, international relations, and more. You can find more details about the application here.
Location: UAB Department of Surgery, Birmingham, AL
Cost: None. Students receive a $1,000 stipend
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Highly selective; 5 students in each cohort
Dates: June 8 - July 31
Application Deadline: January 19
Eligibility: High school juniors who are also US residents
UAB Surgery PRISM is a selective summer internship where you get introduced to surgical research through direct mentorship. You will work with surgeons on research topics like patient outcomes and surgical techniques, and you will learn how research questions are turned into study designs and results. Weekly seminars cover how surgical training works, along with topics like ethics and decision-making in medicine. The program ends with a poster presentation to faculty, so you practice presenting your work in a research format.
Location: Virtual
Cost: Varies by the program. Financial aid is available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective
Application deadline: On a rolling basis. Spring (January), Summer (May), Fall (September), and Winter (November).
Program dates: Multiple 12-15-week cohorts throughout the year, including spring, summer, fall, and winter.
Eligibility: High school students
Veritas AI’s AI + Medicine Deep Dive teaches you how machine learning is used in healthcare through guided lessons and project work. You learn how AI models can support tasks like disease detection, improving medical scan quality, and summarizing model outputs in a way that is useful for doctors and patients. The program is run by Harvard graduate students, and the focus stays on building core AI and data skills while working with medical examples throughout. Here is the program brochure and the application form.
Location: Multiple UA campuses, including UAB, Birmingham, for some activities
Cost: Program costs are typically funded; housing is included
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Small; selective
Dates: Summer term
Application Deadline: Varies annually
Eligibility: Rural Alabama high school students in grades 11–12
If you’re interested in medicine and want to make a real impact on communities that need doctors the most, this program helps you connect purpose with career goals. You’ll gain college-level exposure to health sciences while learning how healthcare access, policy, and physician shortages affect people, especially in underserved areas. The program helps you build academic confidence, leadership skills, and a strong sense of direction long before college begins. You’ll also benefit from mentorship and structured guidance that shows you how to navigate the path from high school to medical or health-professional school.
Location: Birmingham City Schools high schools (Huffman, Ramsay, Wenonah, Woodlawn), Birmingham, AL
Cost: Free, school-funded
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Not publicly available; selective, application-based
Dates: Full school year, starting in the fall
Application Deadline: Varies by school and enrollment cycle
Eligibility: Rising 9th graders with strong academic performance
The Birmingham City Schools Academy of Health Science is a multi-year pathway that combines school coursework with healthcare-focused training. You will take classes like anatomy, medical terminology, and health ethics, and you will also participate in skill-based workshops tied to clinical practice. The program includes externship-style exposure and UAB-connected activities, so you learn how healthcare careers are structured in real institutions. Over time, the pathway helps you build both academic preparation and basic hands-on familiarity with clinical settings.
Location: High schools and UAB sites, Birmingham, AL
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Open enrollment
Dates: School year programs
Application Deadline: Varies by AHEC center
Eligibility: Grades 9–12
Alabama AHEC pathway programs focus on helping you explore healthcare careers and prepare for the education steps that come after high school. You take part in activities like campus visits, career talks, mock interviews, and test prep sessions. The programs cover a range of roles across healthcare, so you will learn about nursing, allied health, public health, and medical careers in the same space. AHEC also connects the conversation to workforce needs in underserved areas, which helps you understand why certain healthcare roles matter and where demand is growing.
Location: UAB Hospital and clinics, Birmingham, AL
Cost: $20 uniform fee
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Competitive with interview
Dates: Two 3-week summer sessions (June – July)
Application Deadline: April 1 (Tentative)
Eligibility: Students aged 15 who have completed 9th grade
UAB’s Teen Volunteer Program places you inside hospital operations, with most of the work focused on service, support, and patient-facing tasks. You will rotate through different clinical and administrative areas and learn how hospitals handle daily flow, communication, and logistics. Lunch and Learn sessions introduce careers like nursing, pharmacy, and surgery through talks with professionals. It is a good fit if you want to see hospital work up close before deciding whether you want a clinical career.
Location: Children’s of Alabama downtown campus, Birmingham, AL
Cost: $15 uniform fee
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Moderately selective
Dates: June 1 – June 25; July 6 – July 30
Application Deadline: Applications start March 1
Eligibility: Students aged 16–18
Children’s of Alabama’s teen program gives you a structured way to spend time in a pediatric hospital environment. You will support staff through service tasks, help with patient and family navigation, and rotate through departments to see how pediatric care is organized. Lunch and Learn sessions cover roles in child health, therapy, and nursing, so you get exposure beyond just physicians. Because you are working around younger patients, you also build comfort with communication and professionalism in a high-sensitivity setting.
Location: University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL
Cost: $200
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Moderately selective
Dates: June 1 – 5; June 8 – 12
Application Deadline: Typically in April
Eligibility: Students who have finished grades 9, 10, and 11
UAB’s Summer Science Institute I is a short lab lab-based program focused on cellular and molecular biology. You will complete experiments such as DNA extraction and basic bacterial analysis using guided protocols. Lectures connect what you do in the lab to areas like drug development and genetics. The schedule is fast, and you spend most of the time doing lab work, so you leave with a clearer sense of what entry-level biomedical research looks like.
Location: Virtual (UAB Heersink School of Medicine)
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective
Dates: Varies by the cohort
Application Deadline: September 26 for the fall cohort
Eligibility: Alabama residents
This program is designed to help you see yourself in medicine before you ever step onto a college campus. Through virtual clinical simulations, mentoring sessions, and guided discussions, you’ll start thinking like a future doctor, learning how physicians approach patient care, problem-solving, and ethical decision-making. You’ll gain confidence by interacting with medical students and professionals who explain the real journey to medical school, not just the highlight reel. VIPMed is especially valuable if you don’t have easy access to hospitals or shadowing opportunities, because it removes location and cost barriers.
Location: Virtual
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate/cohort size: There is no information available
Dates: 2 weeks in June
Application Deadline: Early February
Eligibility: Rising 10th, 11th, and 12th-grade high school students
UT Southwestern’s virtual internship focuses on mental health careers, with a strong tilt toward psychology and psychiatry. You will learn from professionals like psychiatrists, neuropsychologists, clinical social workers, and physician assistants through live sessions and discussions. The reading list mixes research papers and media articles, and you use those to talk through real topics in patient care. You also get introduced to areas like neuropsychological testing, psychotherapy, neuroscience, and interventional psychiatry.
Location: On campus or virtual
Cost: On-campus: $6,580; Virtual: $4,580
Acceptance rate/cohort size: There is no information available
Dates: July 13-24 (On-site), July 27 - August 7 (Virtual)
Application Deadline: February 9
Eligibility: Rising high school juniors and seniors aged 16 years or older
Stanford’s Clinical Summer Internship teaches clinical thinking through case-based learning and simulated patient scenarios. You will work in small groups, practice how doctors approach symptoms, and talk through how treatment decisions are made. Faculty-led sessions introduce different specialties and the way healthcare systems are structured. Workshops focus on teamwork and communication, which are a big part of clinical work even before you touch technical skills. The schedule blends short lectures with applied activities, so the learning stays tied to patient care situations.
Location: Virtual
Cost: $2,400 + $45 application fee (financial aid is available)
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; 50 students per year
Dates: June 15 – 26; July 6 – 17
Application Deadline: December 15 – February 20
Eligibility: U.S. high school students (14+) with solid math or computer programming skills
Stanford AIMI’s Summer Research Internship is focused on AI in medical imaging and clinical decision making, using real healthcare-style datasets and problems. You will attend daily sessions that teach machine learning concepts and how they apply to medical data. A big part of the program is the group project, where you work with Stanford-affiliated mentors and build a solution around a healthcare AI use case. Expert talks introduce career paths across academia, industry, and public institutions, so you get a sense of where this work happens. The program is structured like a short research sprint, with steady deliverables and collaboration throughout.
Location: Virtual
Cost: $1,725
Acceptance rate/cohort size: 12%
Dates: June 8 – June 19 or June 22 – July 3
Application Deadline: March 1
Eligibility: High school students
This program is a solid fit if you’re interested in how the brain, behavior, and mental health intersect in clinical research. You’ll gain exposure to neuroscience topics while learning how scientists study neurological and psychiatric conditions. Through interactive seminars and collaborative problem-solving, you’ll start understanding how research findings translate into real-world mental health care. Working on a capstone project helps you sharpen analytical thinking and apply what you’ve learned in a structured, meaningful way.
Location: Virtual
Cost: $1,299 + $25 application fee
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective
Dates: June 18 – August 12
Application Deadline: February 15
Eligibility: 16+ for wet-lab, 15+ for remote projects
This program gives you the chance to experience what real medical and biological research feels like, without needing to be on campus. You’ll work with a faculty mentor on a focused research project, helping you build the independence and discipline required for future lab or clinical research. As you progress, you’ll strengthen your scientific thinking, learn how to communicate research clearly, and gain confidence in presenting your work to others. The program also helps you explore how research connects to medical careers through guided discussions and peer interaction.
Stephen is one of the founders of Lumiere and a Harvard College graduate. He founded Lumiere as a PhD student at Harvard Business School. Lumiere is a selective research program where students work 1-1 with a research mentor to develop an independent research paper.
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