Golden Valley post-graduate program brings more physicians to Merced

This week three family nurse practitioners started their full-time nursing positions at Golden Valley Health Centers, just days after they were the first group to graduate from the health center’s post-graduate program.

Golden Valley’s Advanced Training Program, or ATP, is for licensed physicians assistants and nurse practitioners. Golden Valley officials say the six-month-long program is designed to bring more medical providers to Merced County and the rest of the Central Valley while helping recent graduates transition into being full-time medical providers.

The three recent ATP graduates are all from different areas in the country.

Brittany Price, who was raised in Chicago, Ill., received her doctorate from the University of Miami. She said she chose to move to the Central Valley because of “my desire to work with underserved populations.”

“I’m in it to help people who need it (health care) the most,” the 29-year-old said.

All of Merced County is considered a medical professional shortage area, and ranked 43 out of 58 counties in California primary care physician-to-patient ratio, according to The Merced County 2016 Community Health Assessment by the Merced County Department of Public Health.

Dozens of Merced residents are competing for appointments or are being turned down by physicians because they’re not taking new patients.

According to the health assessment, 43.8 percent of adults in the county report delays or difficulty obtaining health care. In 2015 emergency room visits went up about 10 percent from 2012 due to the lack of access to care.

There is a “big gap and need” in primary care, said Andrea Shoup, a recent graduate from ATP, because most doctors go into specialty practices.

“Offering a residency program for nurse practitioners is super rare,” said Shoup, 29. “We’re gaining confidence and helping fill the gap.”

While Price and the third ATP graduate, Adrienne Kolf, will be working at Golden Valley sites in Modesto, Shoup is staying at the Merced Golden Valley clinic on Childs Avenue.

Shoup, who graduated with a masters from the University of Hawaii, said her stress levels are much lower than some of her classmates who went with the job that would pay them the most and didn’t give them the same amount of training ATP did.

“It’s invaluable,” she said. “I could not imagine not having this program.

Since working with patients in the community, Kolf, who moved to the Valley from Chicago, Ill., said she is more aware of how health insurance impacts patients in Merced and tries to accommodate what they need and can afford.

“One of the days I started here one of my patients couldn’t afford the $5 copay,” the 28-year-old said. “This is something special to this population they don’t teach you in school.”

Since coming to work in the Valley, all three ATP graduates said they work with many Medi-Cal patients, that more than 50 percent of Merced County residents rely on as an insurance provider, and is seen to be part of the reason it’s harder to retain doctors in the county because of Medi-Cal’s lower compensation.

“It’s really rewarding to gain a different perspective,” Kolf said. “It’s a win, win. We benefited and the community did too.”

The program is a way to bring more access to health care to the patients throughout the 28 Golden Valley locations in the Valley, Shoup said.

“I’m in no rush to leave,” Shoup said. “It’s helped me grow as a person not just with medicine.”

As part of their ATP training, the three graduates will also be taking a 4-day-long Spanish course that teaches them medical terms.

“It could make a significant impact on patients if we knew Spanish,” Price said. “We can connect better if we speak the same language and can provide faster services without translations.”

This story was originally published May 23, 2017 at 5:51 PM with the headline "Golden Valley post-graduate program brings more physicians to Merced."