The Birmingham-Southern College family is deeply saddened over the death of Dr. D. Bruce Irwin ’72 on April 14, 2023. The founder of American Family Care, Dr. Irwin had served as a BSC Trustee since 2016 and endowed several scholarships. We are grateful for his service and for his remarkable life.

One of the great things about a liberal arts education is the way that it allows graduates to switch tracks, even in the middle of a successful career. The career of Dr. Bruce Irwin ’72 is a perfect example.

Irwin chose Birmingham-Southern College because he knew he wanted to go to medical school, and BSC, then as now, had a great reputation for preparing and placing students. But after several years as a hospital physician, Irwin saw a problem—a glut of patients in emergency rooms—and came up with a solution.

Irwin, who passed away on April 14, 2023, was Founder and CEO of American Family Care, a national company with more than 200 facilities across 26 states treating more than three million patients each year.

Irwin’s tenacity showed itself early. Born the son of a cobbler in Center Point, Irwin spent much of his childhood watching physicians and nurses tend to his father, who lost both legs in a locomotive accident. He began shining shoes in his father’s shop at the age of 6 but dreamed of becoming a doctor himself.

That vision drove him to succeed all the way through high school and college. “I was fortunate to get a scholarship to BSC,” Irwin recalled in a 2017 profile in BSC’s ‘Southern Magazine. “My father had recently died, and I knew my mother and family needed help, so I also wanted to be near home.”

When Irwin moved into North Hall, it was the first bedroom he had ever had; at home, he had slept on a sofa in the living room.

He worked his way through college with no time for extracurricular activities, devoting his time to his schoolwork as a biology major—he cited Professor Emeritus of Biology Dr. Dan Holliman as the most caring and fair teacher he had—and preparing for medical school.

“Studying and my outside work were pretty much my life,” he said. “BSC gave me the academic background I needed to be accepted into the University of Alabama School of Medicine and to complete the program. But it also opened my life to so many things I cannot enumerate. I was like Mowgli in the ‘Jungle Book’ when I entered Birmingham-Southern.

“But I left the College a well-educated, broadly oriented, polished young man who was able to converse and appreciate a wide range of subjects and things.”

Irwin graduated from BSC in 1972 and attended the UAB School of Medicine to become an emergency room physician. While working in the ER, he realized that non-emergencies were clogging up hospital waiting rooms, making the experience more difficult for those patients as well as patients who truly needed emergency care. Knowing there had to be a better way, he envisioned a new kind of health care— with a facility equipped and staffed like an ER, but able to provide routine care from the consumer’s point of view.

He opened the first American Family Care clinic in 1982, making it the first urgent care, family care, and primary care practice in Birmingham. Located close to where patients lived, worked, and shopped, it offered extended hours seven days a week, on a walk-in basis.

Back then – in a world where politicians, academicians, and insurance companies drove the world of medicine – the idea of patient-centered health care was a radical one. “When I opened the first office, the medical establishment—including physicians and hospitals—was concerned, and some were outright hostile,” Irwin told BSC students and others when he delivered the 2016 Stump Entrepreneurship Lecture on campus. “You have to think big, I mean really big, work hard, ignore naysayers, and believe in yourself.”

Along with his day-to-day role as leader of a fast-growing Inc. 5000 company, Irwin stayed at the forefront of medicine. He has held board seats and/or memberships in organizations such as the American Academy of Family Physicians, the National Association for Ambulatory Care, the American Academy of Medical Directors, the American Board of Family Practice, and the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, among others.

Irwin evolved into a leading philanthropist for health-related issues, serving in volunteer leadership roles and providing significant financial support to causes such as The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, The American Heart Association, and The Arthritis Foundation. Irwin served as a BSC trustee since 2016 and endowed several scholarships.

“Perhaps the thing most people do not know about me is I never ‘try’ to do anything,” Irwin said. “I do not use that word in my vocabulary, nor do I allow anyone to use it in my presence. You either do something or you don’t. That’s all there is to it.”

A celebration of Donald Bruce Irwin’s life will be held at Asbury United Methodist Church, Birmingham on Saturday, April 22, 2023. Visitation will begin at 2 p.m. at the church, and the service will begin at 3 p.m. A private burial service will follow at Southern Heritage Cemetery in Pelham, Alabama.