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Current & Choice: Filling the Pipeline

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Managing Editor Scott Harris sharris@aamc.org Staff Writer Elissa Fuchs efuchs@aamc.org

Filling the Pipeline

A 'Doctor's Academy' high-school program in California graduates its first class

Current & Choice: New ideas in education, research, and patient care

Future White Coats: Fresno's Sunnyside High School Principal John Marinovich and Katherine Flores, M.D., with the Doctor's Academy students.

More disadvantaged and minority students are now in the medical education "pipeline," thanks in part to the Health Professions Partnership Initiative (HPPI) program, started by the AAMC in 1996. In early May, 32 potential future physicians graduated from a pipeline program at a Fresno, Calif., high school.

Sunnyside High School's "Doctor's Academy" program is geared toward helping disadvantaged students primarily from minority backgrounds get intensive academic preparation for college, combined with healthcare and community service experience. The program was started in 1999 by Katherine Flores, MD, director of the Latino Center for Medical Education and Research.

The Latino Center, which is run by the University of California San Francisco's (UCSF) Fresno campus, has goals that include helping students compete for medical school admission, helping them gain clerkships and residency training in central California, and, ultimately, boosting the number of Latino physicians in the region, says Dr. Flores, who is also a family physician and a faculty member at UCSF Fresno.

The inception of the Doctor's Academy coincided with the opening of Sunnyside four years ago. Academy students take an extra class at the end of their school day, focusing more on college prep than medical topics, according to John Marinovich, Sunnyside's principal. The medical training students receive comes in the form of after-school, weekend, and summer internships, Marinovich says. During the summer before their senior year, they work with a physician mentor - in fact, he says, one student wasn't sure she wanted to be a doctor until she helped deliver a baby; she then finalized her decision to go into medicine.

The Latino Center spends about $1.2 million per year on the academy's educational component. The program receives funding from a variety of sources, including federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) grants (about 46 percent); California state and the California Endowment funds (20 percent each); HPPI, which includes Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and W.K. Kellogg Foundation funds (12 percent); and miscellaneous funds (2 percent).

Highly competitive program

While both Marinovich and Dr. Flores say the program's goal is for the students to eventually become physicians, they realize that some will end up in other health professions such as nursing or dentistry. Marinovich changed the program's original name from Health Professions Prep Academy to Doctor's Academy in an effort to have the students "aim high," he says.

"What we're trying to do is inculcate in the kids the desire to achieve academic excellence toward medicine, nursing, [or pursuing] doctorates and provide them the educational resources and enrichment they need to achieve that," says Dr. Flores.

The program is extremely competitive. A feeder Junior Doctors' Academy at four area middle schools includes 200 students who apply for the 40 slots available at Sunnyside. (The academy took in 45 students this year, five above its normal number.) Grade-point averages and test scores are important, but admission also includes intangibles such as student motivation and demonstrated potential by "going beyond what's expected," Dr. Flores says.

Sunnyside's population is 92 percent minority, which is predominantly Hispanic but also includes Southeast Asian, African-American, East Indian, and disadvantaged white students. The academy gives one-third of its slots to students from Fresno County in the surrounding, mostly agricultural, rural region. The idea, says Dr. Flores, is to reserve spots for students who will return to serve medically underserved areas in the region.

Marinovich had nothing but praise for both the program and his students. "In my 30 years as an educator, this is by far the best partnership that I've ever seen or worked on. The Doctor's Academy raises the bar for all of the students on our campus," he says, adding that of the 3,000-student high school's 22 valedictorians this year, eight were from the academy. As a tribute to the program's intensity, UCSF School of Medicine has agreed to hold two early admission spots for Doctor's Academy students, contingent on their academic performance and MCAT scores.

One graduate, Cynthia Vuittonet, will be attending Brown University's highly competitive Program in Liberal Medical Education, an eight-year program that combines undergraduate and medical school education. She says she hopes to return to become a UCSF Fresno faculty member and practice at the Community Medical Center's Level One Trauma Unit in Fresno.

"Having the chance to not only visit colleges, but also have a support staff that has provided me with a foundation for my future, is just a few of the things that make the Doctor's Academy an incredible program," Vuittonet says.

By Michael G. Malloy

Editor's note: For more information, visit www.ucsfresno.edu/latinocenter and www.sunnyside.fresno.k12.ca.us/DA/home.htm.

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