How can we expand and diversity California’s health workforce?

1. Sustain and expand pipeline and pathway programs that identify, recruit, and support students from under-represented backgrounds.

2. Increase capacity to train physicians, nurses, and allied health workers.

3. Reduce costs for all (e.g., apprentice models) and eliminate debt burden for target professions, geographies, and populations:

   1. The median debt load for a physician is $200,000 and higher for dentistry; debt loads are increasing in nursing.

   2. Students from lower-income households and first-to-college families are most negatively impacted.

4. Allocate existing resources to institutions that can document they provide outcomes aligned with state goals: primary care and behavioral health, rural placement, acceptance of Medi-Cal, racial/ ethnic representation and linguistic skills.

Assessing the Scope of the Problem

The disparity has been made worse by generations of under-investment in health education and training:

• California ranks 46 among the 47 states and territories with medical schools for enrollment, per capita; and 29 of 50 for residency slots, per capita.

• Only 25% of qualified applicants for bachelors of nursing programs could be enrolled in actual nursing programs where they would go on to serve their communities.

Making a Difference

LPOC is working every day to support and empower Latin/x physicians and other medical professionals to serve the Latin/x community of California - and specifically areas that are below minimum standards for Primary Care Physicians, which tend to be regions of the state with high Latin/x populations.

Want to be a part of the solution? Join LPOC as a member today! Click Here >>