Program Opens Path to Health Care Careers for Urban Students

Felicia Hayes, 17, giggled when she talked about how she got interested in becoming a surgeon.

“I was dissecting frogs at school one day, and I really liked it,” said Felicia, whose smile revealed a mouth full of braces.

After a round of laughter shared with a few classmates, Felicia--a cheerleader and student body president at John Glenn High School in Norwalk--talked about the main reason why she is determined to be the first person in her family to finish college.

“I have seen my parents struggle all their lives to make a living,” Felicia said as the laughter died down. “I know what struggle is all about and I want something better for myself. I want to help others, and now I have the chance to put back what they gave me.”

Carlos Sanchez, 17, who also attends John Glenn, listened quietly and after a long silence said: “I knew I wanted to be a pediatrician when my family and I went to Mexico to visit relatives. I saw all these sick children who were dying because there were no doctors to help them. I guess that’s what did it for me.”

Work Experience in Health

Felicia and Carlos could have been speaking for many of the 20 Southeast area high school students who are participating in a Health Professions Work Experience Program for minority and low-income families at the University of California, Irvine.

The high school students from Cerritos, Downey, Norwalk, Bellflower, Hawaiian Gardens and Lakewood are spending three weeks this summer living in dormitories on the campus with 16 other minority and low-income high school students from Los Angeles and Orange counties. The students are taking math and science classes to prepare for careers in the health professions.

Program in Second Year

This is the second year of the summer program, which is sponsored by the Orange County/Long Beach Area Health Education Center, a nonprofit group based at Irvine.

Unlike the other students, the Southeast contingent has been placed in paying summer jobs at various health clinics for nine weeks, thanks to a $38,000 grant from the Southeast Los Angeles County Service Delivery Area program.

In 1983, the cities of Cerritos, Downey, Norwalk, Bellflower, Hawaiian Gardens and Lakewood formed the area program, a federally funded program that pays for job-training programs for minority and low-income youths and adults.

20-Hour-a-Week Jobs

Many of the Southeast area students, like Felicia, are placed in jobs at Norwalk Community Hospital. Others are placed at various health centers like Artesia Community Hospital, Bellflower Health Center and Planned Parenthood of Lakewood. The students are paid $3.35 an hour and work 20 hours a week answering phones, filing papers and running errands. They work at their jobs for 4 1/2 weeks before their stay at UCI and for 4 1/2 weeks afterward.

For a few of the students, these are their first jobs, and for most of the students the program provides them with the chance to be the first in their families to go to college.

“A lot of these kids are afraid to go to a university because no one in their family has gone to school,” said Anna Diaz, director of the Health Education Center. “Hopefully, being on the campus will show them they have nothing to be afraid of and that becoming a doctor is something within their reach.”

But Nati Garcia’s mother was a little skeptical at first.

Wants to Be a Pharmacist

Nati, 17, a senior at John Glenn, says he wants to become a pharmacist but he almost had to pass up the chance to participate in the program because his mother needed him to work at his family’s T-shirt business in Whittier.

“She figured that three weeks is a long time to not be working, but she knows I had to come to this program so I could have a better future,” Nati said. “I guess she just wants me to have a better life than she had.”

Nati said his mother, Santos Garcia, relies on him and his five brothers and sisters to work at the shop after school and on weekends.

Things have been tough for Garcia, who is a single mother, but she says she knows Nati and his sister, who attends Cerritos College, will make better lives for themselves.

Proud as Punch

“I am real proud of Nati,” said Garcia, who came to the United States from Mexico 23 years ago. “I could have used him to work in the store this summer, but I want him to make something out of his life.”

Harvey Williams, a counselor at UCI’s College of Medicine, says many parents who have not attended school would like their children to stay home and work because of economic necessity.

“The parents I’ve talked to see institutions of higher learning as overwhelming so not only do they not know how it works but they rarely see the payoff of a degree when they need to put food on the table,” Williams said.

Exploring Campus

The students, who moved into their dorms two weeks ago, spend part of their day exploring the campus and visiting friends in their dorm rooms. But most of the morning is spent studying and taking advanced high-school level classes in biology, algebra, geometry and calculus.

After classes, Diaz says, she tries to arrange for counselors, doctors and other health professionals to speak to the students. The first speaker to come to the program, Dennis Lopez, an Educational Opportunity Program counselor at the campus, held every student’s attention while he spoke about the lack of minority doctors.

“How many people here have brothers and sisters who went to college?” Lopez asked. One or two people raised their hands. “Most of you are the trailblazers in your family and among your classmates at school. It is up to you to make sure that this shortage of black and Chicano-Latino doctors does not continue.”

According to Lopez, 45% of all Latino students in the country drop out of high school before they even get to college. If the dropout rate continues, so will the shortage of Latino doctors, Lopez said.

Lack of Latino Doctors

“Not only is there a serious lack of doctors in the Hispanic community, but there is a serious lack of all health professionals,” Lopez said after his presentation. “These kids need to see people from similar environments who are making it, to give them confidence.”

Felicia, Nati, and Carlos all agreed that their motivation comes from their desire to help others and to make their families proud.

“My parents have always told me not to forget where I came from, kind of like your roots,” Felicia said. “I know they can’t afford to send me to the best schools, but even if I have to take out every loan there is, I am going to become a surgeon.”