Plans for Valley medical program moving closer to fruition, says Assemblyman Gray
Assemblymember Adam Gray, D-Merced, this week convened the San Joaquin Valley Coalition for Medical Education at UC Merced to discuss burgeoning plans of a San Joaquin Valley medical school.
The program’s plans have been on the drawing board for decades, but until recently they’ve been largely conceptual.
Gray and other program proponents were recently given a boost of $15 million from Gov. Gavin Newsom, who included those funds as part of his proposed 2020-21 state budget.
Gray called Thursday’s meeting “an incredible moment in the trajectory” of the ongoing effort.
“We finally got the governor to embrace funding on an ongoing basis, which is going to make this a reality,” Gray said.
Newsom’s allocation would provide ongoing funding to expand medical education at UC Merced in partnership with UC San Francisco School of Medicine Fresno Branch Campus. “We’ve got to land this money now,” Gray said Thursday.
Representatives from the state, local counties, UC Merced, UCSF Fresno and various members of the medical community congregated to identify challenges and needs, as well as brainstorm potential fixes.
Long regarded as being one of the poorest and least healthy regions, the Central Valley and its communities face some of the state’s most severe health professional shortages.
Many residents are recipients of Medi-Cal, which often reimburses medical providers at a lower rate than private insurance. Coupled with high taxes, it is difficult to attract medical providers to the Valley, officials say.
Physicians, nurse practitioners, registered nurses and counselors are all in short supply.
“Healthcare is a challenge because there are just barriers here,” said UC Merced Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Gregg Camfield, noting the difficulty of serving a largely rural area.
The longstanding strategy to address the problem is geared toward cultivating home-grown health professionals, which in turn will hopefully encourage those professionals to stay and practice regionally.
The collaboration between UC Merced and UCSF Fresno would include a host of other joint efforts, including forming a medical education pipeline that stretches from high school to post-graduate to residency.
Needs and next steps
Plans for the medical education pathway imagine regional doctor academies that engage high school students interested in health professionalism. College students would take foundational science courses at UC Merced before attending UCSF Fresno.
The coalition will aim to align the pipeline with state Career Technical Education standards, which outline fundamental knowledge and skills.
Dr. Thelma Hurd, director of medical education at UC Merced, noted that while the two schools are both well-positioned to deliver medical education, they also complement each other. UC Merced is equipped for public health research, while UCSF Fresno is geared toward clinical research.
As the final phase of UC Merced’s expansion project concludes this year, a level three biosafety lab will open for increased health research. Level three biosafety labs deal with microbes that can cause serious or potentially lethal diseases through respiratory transmission.
The curriculum at UCSF Fresno is expanding to include Valley-specific concerns like migrant health, Valley fever and methamphetamine abuse, UCSF Fresno Assistant Dean Dr. Kenny Banh said.
As the number of medical students expands, more local residency programs will be needed to avoid a bottleneck. The coalition is working to identify how many new residency slots will be realistically available.
One meeting attendee noted that most residency spots are for medical specialties, which aggravates the distinct shortage of Valley primary care physicians. Creating a minimum baseline for patient-to-physician ratios was recommended.
A sizable endowment to sustainably fund residency is being considered, too.
Other coalition members proposed contacting large organizations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for funding. It was suggested that formalizing the coalition could give it more power and help achieve larger funding levels.
“Our success will really depend on being open minded,” Camfield said.
