A new fast-track medical program at UC Merced may be the answer to the shortage of doctors, nurses and medical personal in the San Joaquin Valley of California.
California Lt. Governor and UC Regent John Garamendi proposed the idea of a fast-track medical school, and he said he hopes to have the program up and running by 2010.
“We could create an extraordinary opportunity for students with a medical fast-track program,” Garamendi said.
The central premise of the fast-track medical school program is to shorten the duration of medical school to produce primary care physicians and nurses as opposed to focusing on medical research, as other University of California campuses do.
“We have to think outside the box in a cost-effective way and get this up and running as early as 2010,” Garamendi said.
Garamendi said by making use of existing facilities such as surrounding community colleges, labs, hospitals, classes and professors already available at UC Merced, 2010 is a realistic date for commencement of the program.
In an opinion piece by Garamendi submitted to the Daily Bruin by his communications director Beth Willon, he explained his vision for how the program would work.
He said the program would recruit highly qualified high school students ““ especially those from the Central Valley ““ to a three-year intensive program with no summer vacations in which they would be able to complete an undergraduate bachelor of science degree.
After that, they would move on to a two-year clinical rotation at local hospitals, where they would finish their medical degree.
Finally, they would participate in two-year residencies to complete their training, for a total of seven years.
Currently, medical students are usually required to complete four years of undergraduate work, four years of medical school and a residency of at least two years, for a total of 10 years.
The cost of the medical school program would be significantly less for students since the duration would be much shorter, Garamendi said.
When asked if the quality of physicians would suffer due to a faster education pace, Garamendi said that the doctors coming out of the program would still be required to pass all the same tests and licensing boards as a regular physician in order to practice medicine and would therefore be equally qualified.
Trey Davis, the director of special projects for the UC Office of the President, said that a consulting firm, the Washington Advisory Group, is currently studying how the medical fast-track program at UC Merced could be started and will issue their report later this month.
Davis said the UC Regents plan to convene on Feb. 4 and 5 and will discuss the issue of implementing the medical fast-track program at the UC Merced campus.
The Regents already voted to authorize discussion and planning for the creation of a medical school at UC Merced, but the vote was for a research focused medical school as opposed to a fast-track program.
It remains to be decided if they will convert the original plan to a fast-track medical program, and it will take a lot of cooperation between the UC Regents, UC Office of the President and UC Merced.
UC Merced Director of Media Relations Brandy Nikaido said, “The Valley clearly needs and deserves a medical school to train doctors committed to serving the region’s rapidly growing and diverse population.”
Garamendi hopes to rally support behind the cause and get the medical fast-track program started.
He said it has been used in similar form in other places around the world and in other parts of the country, and it needs to be done in the Central Valley, which he said loses an estimated $845 million annually to residents having to leave the area to seek medical care.
The lieutenant governor said he also hopes that his proposal could be coupled with a federal program to pay back student’s loans when they serve as doctors and nurses in underserved communities.
“The University of California produces the best, and it is the charter of the University of California to respond to the needs of California,” said Garamendi. “State legislature has the responsibility to fund the University of California.”