SPECIAL SECTION: THE HISPANIC FOOTPRINT IN CONTEMPORARY MEDICINE
Part 1: The Backstory by Dr. Arthur Gomez, Senior Associate Dean, CDU 4-Year Medical Program
The advancements of Latinos in the medical profession have been a continuously evolving process. Like so many emerging social action movements, there have been periods of advancement and periods of dismay; the classic two steps forward, three steps back position. In the 1970s, many West and East coast medical schools made advances in recruiting Black and Brown physicians. In California with Latinos, it was spurred by the Chicano movement that was prevalent in the 1960’ s and 1970’ s. In the urban Southwest US social conditions and in medicine, that influence was transferable.
Dr. William G. Figueroa
Several notable leaders come to mind, such as Dr. William G. Figueroa, who led the way to advocate for equitable admissions at UCLA. His counterpart for African American admissions was Dr. Josephine Isabel- Jones. Together they made a formidable couple advancing the numbers clearly seen in the Class Pictures on the walls of the David Geffen School of Medicine from the mid 70’ s to the late 80’ s. Similar efforts were conducted widely in California, especially at UCSF, but also at private institutions such as Stanford and USC. Concurrently happening was the establishment of our CDU-UCLA MEP Program in 1981 with a focus on African American applicants but also the calling to heal the whole South Los Angles community and recruit a significant number of Latinx medical students.
Then came the 80’ s with backlash in the form of Proposition 209 and a list of conservative governmental modifications. However, efforts toward creativity in admissions process prevailed despite those limitations. Advocates for the cause learned how to work within those guardrails which lead to mission-driven initiatives and solutions such as the PRIME initiative in the UC campuses, and the continued focus by CDU on Latino admissions. Mission driven initiatives were used intentionally to recruit applicants empathetic toward the care of our growing Latino population. It was not a surrogate for race as some critics would respond, but an alignment with a mission that would be in concert with our needs as a state to care for our own citizenry.
Major movers and shakers came from allied health policy and academicians such as Joseph Castro, PhD, associate vice chancellor of Student Academic Affairs at UCSF, and David Hayes Bautista PhD, professor of medicine and director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at the School of
David Hayes Bautista
Medicine, UCLA, delineated of the vast shortages of Latinx MDs in the California physician workforce. That rejoinder created an imperative to correct the shortage in order to effectively serve the widespread community.
So, in large part, even though race as a factor in college admissions could no longer be applied in California, well before the recent Supreme Court decisions, the mission to serve the Hispanic community continued to attract Latinos to apply for careers in medicine, and the numbers again showed a modest rise, swelled in large part due to the efforts of prominent Deans such as Ted Hall at UCLA, Michelle Albert at UCSF, and now Jennifer Lucero at UCLA.
As a result, the hallway portraits during the early 2000’ s became significantly diverse again. This journey, of course, has been spurred along by our own UCLA-CDU
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