UAB Heroes and Healers Event to Premiere Three Short Trauma Documentaries

Three short films built around burn survivors, trauma patients, and the clinical teams who kept them alive will get their world premiere on May 1, 2026, when the UAB Division of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery hosts its third annual Heroes and Healers event at the Alys Stephens Center's Morris K. Sirote Theatre in Birmingham.

For Alabama documentary makers watching institutional storytelling from the outside, this is worth studying up close. UAB Trauma has now built a repeatable short-form model: identify honorees, produce documentary-style profiles, and anchor a public-facing fundraiser around the premiere. The 2026 class includes burn survivor Carmen Knight, trauma survivor Jacob Smith, and three members of the care team: registered nurse Reese Cameron, physician assistant Jeff Richey, and certified occupational therapy assistant Felicia Sanders. Each gets their own film; the survivor stories run alongside a third short that goes inside the trauma center itself, framed around the division's motto "Always Here, Always Ready" and what it actually takes to keep the unit running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

That operational film is the most useful template for documentary filmmakers eyeing hospital partnerships. It shifts the subject from individual patient to institution without losing the human element, a structurally harder thing to pull off than a single-subject profile, and it signals that UAB's communications and clinical teams are willing to grant access beyond the standard press release.

Division Director Jeffrey Kerby, M.D., Ph.D., frames the event as recognition for the whole care ecosystem, not just the surgeons. "The Heroes and Healers event gives us a moment to recognize the entire system of care that is crucial to meeting the needs of our patients," Kerby said. "Seeing our former patients thriving after injury is powerful, and a reminder of why we do what we do."

The evening is structured as a full movie premiere: red carpet, velvet rope, red carpet photos, and tickets that include light hors d'oeuvres, beverages, and the world premiere screenings. Alcoholic beverages and non-alcoholic cocktails will be available at a cash bar. KD Hill, the 2024 honoree and a trauma survivor, author, and former Ole Miss football player, returns to emcee the night.

Proceeds from the event benefit the UAB chapter of the Trauma Survivors Network, which supports programs for trauma survivors and their families including peer mentoring and support groups. That funding connection is worth noting for filmmakers pitching impact projects: the films are not just awareness content, they are the engine driving a specific philanthropic outcome tied to ongoing survivor services.

The production side of Heroes and Healers has not been publicly detailed in terms of crew credits or camera-to-screen timeline, which is exactly the kind of gap a local documentarian could use as an opening. UAB's hospital communications infrastructure, combined with a built-in premiere audience that includes clinicians, first responders, survivors, donors, and media, represents the kind of distribution-ready ecosystem that most indie doc makers spend years trying to build independently. The path in is through the Division of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery's outreach programs; the Trauma Survivors Network partnership is the institutional anchor that makes these projects fundable and repeatable.

Tickets and event logistics are listed through UAB's event calendar pages. The screening takes place at the Morris K. Sirote Theatre inside the Alys Stephens Center on the UAB campus.