78 Photo Essay: Wesley Minor

Resident Physician, UAB Family Medicine Clinic in Huntsville

Words by Terrell Manasco | Image by Al Blanton

When Wesley Minor was a senior at Cordova High, he wanted to be either an engineer or a doctor. His dad and his younger brother, Andrew, are both engineers. Wesley, who admits he’s “pretty good at math,” was leaning toward engineering until a science teacher urged him to pursue medicine instead. 

“She said, ‘Go for it!’” Wesley recalls. 

So, Wesley “went for it,” doing four years of undergraduate work at UAB in chemistry and a year-long rural medical program at Auburn.

Now in his first year of residency at UAB Family Medicine Clinic in Huntsville, Wesley says his education didn’t end with medical school. “It's kind of eye-opening, the needs that a lot of these people have that I never realized,” he says. “A lot of patients we see at our clinic come from an underserved population. We're pretty much the only clinic in the area that will help a majority of these folks.” 

While the transition from rural high school student to UAB undergrad in a large, diverse city like Birmingham could be seen as a challenge, Wesley says learning how to practice medicine in a post-COVID world has been a major learning curve. “We’ve had a lot of telehealth, which is something we were never trained for in med school,” he says. “As a medical student, you can see patients in the hospital, kind of come and go as you please. Now, with everybody being sick, we have to gown up and be careful where we go, know what equipment to use, etc. That added a lot of extra stress on top of normal residency stress.”

The aftershocks of COVID-19 have also had an effect on how long patients put off seeing a doctor, which often has severe consequences. “Everybody is scared to get out and they wait until the last minute,” Wesley says. “They show up and they are sicker and need a lot of care.”

After completing his residency, the self-described “small-town boy” hopes to return to his Walker County roots and go into practice in the Dora area. Although Wesley didn’t follow his dad and brother into engineering, he doesn’t regret his decision to practice medicine. 

“I am glad to be where I am,” he says. “It’s been a fun journey.”

And he’s grateful to a Cordova High science teacher who set him on this path with three words: 

“Go for it.” 78