NORWOOD CLINIC HISTORY 

    Norwood Clinic was founded on the concept that a group of skilled doctors  representing a variety of clinical specialties, working as a team, sharing talents and resources, can provide the most timely, appropriate and comprehensive patient care. 

 

 

 

A DOCTOR’S VISION 

    In the first decades of the 20^th century, one Birmingham doctor had a vision of a healthcare delivery system that would combine physicians of various interests and specialties to coordinate patient care.  He made annual month-long sabbaticals to Rochester, Minnesota where he studied with Charles and William Mayo, creators of the first organized, multispecialty, medical group practice in the United States.  That Birmingham doctor was general surgeon Charles N. Carraway. 

 

    Inspired by the progress he saw at the Mayo brother’s growing clinic and hospital complex, Dr. Carraway first built a 16-bed hospital and office next to his Pratt City home.  In 1916, he purchased a lot on the corner of 16^th Avenue and 26^th Street in Birmingham and built Norwood Hospital (what is now Carraway Methodist Medical Center). 

 

    Almost immediately he went to work planning an adjacent clinic building patterned after the Mayo model.  During the next few years, enthusiasm for the idea grew as more doctors in more specialties came to share Dr. Carraway’s dream.  And the idea of a group of medical doctors representing different specialties working together in one practice ultimately became Alabama’s first multispecialty medical group practice — Norwood Clinic. 

 

    Norwood Clinic was incorporated in 1925 and opened its doors to the public in 1926 with convenient accessibility to Norwood Hospital for both patients and physicians. 

 

 

NORWOOD CLINIC TODAY 

    Today, Norwood Clinic is a separate entity from Carraway Methodist Medical Center.  It is one of the largest privately owned multispecialty medical group practices in Alabama.  The clinic currently numbers over 40 physicians practicing in 20 primary care, medical, and surgical specialties.  In addition to its main facility located on the campus of Carraway Methodist Medical Center in Birmingham, Norwood Clinic currently maintains several affiliated practice sites serving north Alabama from Guin in the west to Pell City in the east, including Warrior and Tarrant in between.  In addition, Norwood Clinic specialists travel to more than 15 sites throughout Birmingham and northern Alabama. 

 

 

 

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