Dr. Brandon Hemphill has been one of the new faces at Wetumpka Urgent Care for the past year now.
He first joined the Ivy Creek team back in March 2023. He said it was the team that drew in him with the wonderful physicians and administrative support.
Hemphill first started his career in the military after going through UAB’s medical school. His residency was with the Air Force for family practice in Fort Walton Beach. He later served active duty for nearly 10 years as a family physician and flight surgeon.
“It’s a very unique niche with aviation and aerospace medicine with regards to changes in bariatric pressure, etc.,” he said.
However, the Air Force was something he grew up with. With his dad in the Air Force, Hemphill lived in several countries around Europe for about nine years because of it. In his own career, Hemphill has been deployed multiple times to the Middle East, namely Afghanistan and Iraq, and he still is an active reserve.
During his deployments, he worked a lot with aeromedical evacuation, although he also treated more mundane things too; even in the military people get head colds. But whether it’s urgent care, ER or flight medicine it all goes back to patient care.
After Hemphill finished up his active duty, he worked for roughly six years in the ER at Montgomery’s Baptist Health. There, he also taught residency for a year and started a clinic for occupational medicine.
Hemphill said there’s a degree of nerdiness with every physician, understanding how the body works, digging into the science, focusing on a partial area, but it’s the opportunity to help people that makes it for him.
“I really enjoy people and it just so happens being a physician allows me to have a lot of interactions with a lot of neat people,” he said. “I like to meet people every day, that’s what makes me happy and obviously try to make their day better.”
When Hemphill isn’t with patients, he enjoys spending time with his three kids, playing guitar and staying active with soccer, hiking or mountain biking.
Wetumpka Urgent Care is open seven days a week. On weekdays, it is open 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends. For more information, call 334-567-8633.
