PROPOSAL TO ADDRESS DOCTOR SHORTAGES IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY:

The proposal calls to establish an independently run new medical school at the current location of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in the city of Torrance with an incoming enrollment of 150 to 175 students per year. The specific mission of this community-based medical school will be to train a diverse physician workforce to deliver medical and mental health care to the communities facing critical doctor shortages, and to perform population medicine and public health research to identify and address the needs of the communities of low-socioeconomic status.

Prospective students will be selected based on their scholastic achievement and their ties to their communities where they grew up. The emphasis of the medical school will be in the areas of preventive and primary care including General Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, General Surgery, Family Medicine, OB/GYN, Emergency Medicine and Psychiatry and other short-supply specialties such as ophthalmology, etc. Financial incentives and full scholarship will be awarded to those graduating physicians who commit to serve in areas with a shortage of physicians. The recipients of the awards will have to commit to serving in the underserved communities for five years following the completion of their residency training. Failure to meet their obligation will lead to an automatic conversion of the financial awards into a loan with a pre-determined interest rate which must be repaid within a specified time period.

This proposal is a viable, permanent solution to the chronic undersupply of physicians in marginalized communities and ultimately will address the disparity in access to health care that saves lives. The proposal to open a new medical school has been designed to ensure that the graduating physicians will have to serve the communities with Medi-Cal health insurance. Similar programs have proven successful in other parts of the country and also in Riverside county.

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