When Hope Cain stood on the pitcher’s mound during her four-year softball career at the University of Mobile, “I knew my teammates always had my back. When I stood on the mound, I knew everyone behind me was there to work as a team and allow us to succeed as a team,” she said.
Her team of University of Mobile faculty, coaches and staff had her back, as well. The softball standout from Hartselle, Alabama, was accepted to two medical schools and offered an $80,000 scholarship. When she starts this fall at the University of Alabama-Birmingham School of Medicine, it’s because the support of professors like Dr. Randy Craig helped her realize her true passion – to become a physician.
“The University of Mobile has allowed me to follow my dream of playing college softball, strengthen my faith, and help me understand what I was called to do in my life,” she said.
A member of the UM Class of 2020, Cain earned a Bachelor of Science in pre-health biology. The Christian university in Mobile, Alabama, is one of the few in the nation where undergraduate students like Cain can have hands-on learning experiences in a nationally accredited cadaver lab. UM students have as much as two full semesters of training on actual human specimens – a tremendous benefit for students heading to medical school.
They also have small classes with professors like Craig, professor of biology and chair of the Department of Natural Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences. A veterinary surgeon with over three decades of experience, Craig continues to perform complex surgeries that students are invited to observe.
Whether pre-health students are aimed at careers as physicians, dentists, pharmacists, veterinarians or researchers, the university’s faculty and curriculum will prepare them accordingly, Craig said.
A softball standout who was named the softball scholar-athlete of the year for the SSAC and honorable mention All-American for the NAIA for the 2019 season, Cain took advantage of the opportunities a small campus offers for students to become involved in a variety of activities. During her college career she was a peer leader, tutor, member of Beta Chi, served on the Student Leadership Council, and was president of the university’s chapter of Alpha Chi National Honor Society.
She said attending the University of Mobile helped her further understand how to treat people with the Christ-like attitude that her parents had taught her.
“I also believe that by going to a Christian school, I have received a greater understanding and appreciation of how detailed and the perfect way that God created all of us. When I practice medicine, I want to remember that it is God who gave me and my fellow doctors the abilities we have, and that He is the ultimate healer and physician,” Cain said.
Kathy Dean is associate vice president for university communications and has helped tell the University of Mobile story since 1993. She is an award-winning public relations professional and former journalist. Her husband and daughter are UM graduates. She loves playing in the yard – planting flowers, picking blueberries, pulling weeds and petting her two mini-schnauzers.