Husband-and-wife physician duo Drs. Scott and Rozalyn Love spent a decade practicing medicine together at U.S. Navy hospitals across the globe before deciding to return to their Alabama roots in 2021.

“Florence had always been on our list,” said Rozalyn. “We were looking for a smaller community to raise our three boys. We also love the water, so living near the Tennessee River was really appealing.”

Rozalyn, an obstetrician-gynecologist, cares for pregnant patients at Keller OB/GYN in Sheffield. She also delivers babies at Helen Keller Hospital and has expertise in minimally-invasive gynecologic surgery using the hospital’s da Vinci robotic surgery system.

Scott, a pediatrician, practices at Shoals Pediatric Group in Florence and helped launch Keller’s pediatric hospitalist program. 

Several times this year, Scott has watched Rozalyn deliver a baby at Keller and then taken over as the newborn’s attending physician.

The Loves met in 2005 as grad students in the UAB School of Public Health. Scott was a teaching assistant; Rozalyn took one of his master’s-level classes. Within six months, they were engaged.

Both Scott and Rozalyn were drawn to the idea of serving their country as military physicians. They chose the Navy, which paid for medical school at UAB in exchange for a service commitment.

In 2018, the Navy sent the Loves to Florida to help train younger family medicine physicians at Naval Hospital Jacksonville. They had left Guam with a second son and soon welcomed a third in Florida.

But Rozalyn, a Cullman native, and Scott, who grew up in Vestavia Hills, began itching to return to Alabama to raise their young boys.

One of Scott’s childhood friends is now the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Florence and suggested the couple give the Shoals a look.

“He introduced us to some of the local doctors and arranged for some other church members to take us boating on the river,” says Rozalyn. “It’s been perfect – just what we were looking for.”