San Joaquin County teens learn from UC Davis medical students

Jarely Ortiz was just 12 years old when she found herself in a profoundly painful spot.

An English-speaking doctor needed to relay important information to Ortiz’s Spanish-speaking mother. Ortiz was the interpreter. The message: Test results, the doctor said, revealed her mother had cancer.

The experience was uncomfortable and disturbing for the young girl. “It just taught me that we need to have more diverse doctors,” she recalled.

Jump start on a future

Ortiz, who is now 17, aspires to be a physician to underserved patients, including those who speak Spanish. She recently got a jump start on her ambitions during a visit to the UC Davis School of Medicine.

Ortiz was among 24 high school students from San Joaquin County who learned what it takes to become a student, then a doctor.

The high school students belong to a summer program called Decision Medicine, sponsored by the San Joaquin Medical Society. The group’s physicians started the pathway more than 20 years ago to encourage new generations of local, homegrown doctors.

Learning to stitch on a banana

During their morning outing to Sacramento earlier this month, the teenagers met with UC Davis Health physicians, took part in a Q and A session with medical students and received career tips from nurses. They also practiced surgery skills — suturing a banana.

Trauma surgeon Anamaria Robles led the hands-on activity. She walked around the large classroom teaching the teenagers how to make a small incision in a banana then carefully stitch it up using common emergency room tools.

Robles reminisced about her own experience as a young student in a pre-med pathway.

“I was fortunate to participate in similar programs growing up and have benefitted throughout my career from the guidance and support offered,” said Robles, an assistant professor in the Department of Surgery. “So many people have helped me get to where I am today and I am privileged for the opportunity to hopefully inspire others.”

Exposure leads to success

Decision Medicine is exclusively for accomplished students from San Joaquin County, and most come from backgrounds that have been historically underrepresented in medicine.

Hospitals and clinics in and around Stockton face serious challenges recruiting young doctors or luring more experienced ones away from bustling regions such as the Bay Area.

The two-week program tours hospitals from Modesto to Sacramento and often connects students with physicians who become their mentors.

Participants are “high achieving, motivated, underrepresented students who otherwise might not have these opportunities,” said Lisa Richmond, executive director of the San Joaquin Medical Society. “We want to show them what a day in the life of a doctor looks like.”

The program has an impressive track record: About 10 alumni are now doctors and 18 former participants are in medical school, including some at UC Davis, such as Monifa Sawyerr.

She told the visiting students that Decision Medicine was a transformative high school experience.

“Coming from the Central Valley, there’s not a lot of doctors who look like me,” said Sawyerr, who is Black.

Seeing the UC Davis medical school with Decision Medicine in 2013 “was a huge eye-opener” that helped launch her dream of becoming a doctor. Now, exactly 11 years after that visit, she’s in her last year of medical school and aspires to be “part of the change to get more doctors to the Central Valley.”

Medical students influence a high school student

Jarely Ortiz, who lives in Manteca and will soon begin her senior year in high school, was impressed by the access she got to medical students during Friday’s visit.

She decided that her top medical school choice is UC Davis.

“Seeing the students just sold it for me,” Ortiz said. “Usually, when you see medical students, they look pretty miserable, but they were amazing and they looked healthy.”

The UC Davis School of Medicine’s Office of Student and Resident Diversity coordinated the visit. It is just one of many outreach programs for student groups as young as kindergarten.