Future Doctors Bridging the Cultural Gap; Advocates for Patients' Cultural Needs Awarded $30,000 in Scholarships.

LOS ANGELES -- While balancing an arduous schedule of classes and labs, six Southern California medical students have also set out to improve the healthcare of underserved communities, and in the process have won scholarships from Kaiser Permanente to help fund their on-going studies and good works.

The Kaiser Permanente Oliver Goldsmith, M.D. Scholarship for the Promotion and Advancement of Culturally Responsive Care includes a $5,000 scholarship, mentoring from a Kaiser Permanente clinician, and a clinical rotation at a Kaiser Permanente facility.

The students, in their third year of medical school, "have already made major contributions to culturally responsive healthcare," said Southern California Permanente Medical Group (SCPMG) Medical Director Jeffrey Weisz, MD, at the award reception. "They are everything we want at Kaiser Permanente -- they are committed to offering the best medical care and have gone above and beyond the call of duty for the community."

Among the recipients are Maricela Rodriguez who volunteers at Clinica Romero, a free clinic in inner city Los Angeles, and uses her Spanish-language skills to facilitate better patient-doctor interaction and treatment. Rodriguez attends the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and has also traveled with the Basic Health El Salvador Medical Delegation to provide care to the medically underserved rural town of Jucuran.

Connie Gomez attends the UC Irvine College of Medicine and has worked as a translator at various health clinics. In 2005, Connie participated in the Harbor-UCLA Summer Urban Health Fellowship in Family Medicine, which gave her a closer look at the needs of medically underserved communities and also fueled her efforts to mentor younger bilingual, bicultural students to pursue careers in medicine.

Jessica Mercer graduated summa cum laude from Howard University and is pursuing her medical degree at the Keck School of medicine at the University of Southern California. Jessica recently traveled to Ecuador to volunteer at a public hospital in Quito and continues to improve her Spanish-language skills at the Los Angeles County Hospital-USC Medical School, where she has spearheaded a project with the Pregnancy Options Clinic to provide counseling and education for young women.

Sara Kaplan participated in a program that promoted health and education in rural Mexico before entering the UC Irvine School of Medicine. She now volunteers with UC Irvine's student-run Clinica Carino and is a course coordinator for the school of medicine lecture series, "Diversity in Medicine." Sara has written up the series so it can serve as a model for other medical schools.

Atka Patel also attends UC Irvine School of Medicine and, as a South Asian-American who is Spanish-proficient, Atka has been able to play an active role in her own community and in the Latino community. Atka has traveled to Ecuador where she worked with a group to develop community health programs for remote village populations, and has provided language support in Santa Ana at UCI's Family Health Center. Also, as co-director of the South Asian Health Association, Atka has observed many of the same challenges in her community that she has seen among Latinos, including language barriers, homeopathic practices and differing attitudes towards health and illness. Atka believes that being culturally aware is critical to a physician's ability to provide high-quality care.

Osita Onugha was inspired to help others as a child when he witnessed poverty and substandard health care during a family journey to his parents' homeland, Nigeria. As an undergraduate at UC Davis, Onugha volunteered at the student-run Clinica Tepati. Locally, Onugha organized Project Santa Claus, providing toys and positive African-American role models for pediatric patients and underserved children in the Watts-Willowbrook area of Los Angeles. A student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Onugha firmly believes that acknowledging differences and appreciating them is the first step toward achieving equality in health care.

SCPMG Medical Director Jeffrey Weisz, MD, initiated the scholarship in 2004 in recognition of the leadership and support provided by retired SCPMG Medical Director, Oliver Goldsmith, MD, for the Culturally Responsive Care (CRC) Initiative. The CRC Initiative emphasizes the delivery of culturally responsive care to Kaiser Permanente's diverse patient population, aims to ensure that clinicians are prepared to meet the cultural and linguistic needs of patients, and are made aware of the epidemiologic incidence of disease among different racial, ethnic and cultural groups.

Kaiser Permanente is America's leading integrated health plan. Founded in 1945, it is a nonprofit, group practice prepayment program with Southern California headquarters in Pasadena, California. Kaiser Permanente serves the health care needs of 3.1 million members in Southern California. Today it encompasses the nonprofit Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and their subsidiaries, and the for-profit Southern California Permanente Medical Group. Kaiser Permanente's Southern California Region includes more than 47,530 technical, administrative and clerical employees and caregivers, and more than 5,200 physicians representing all specialties.

www.kaiserpermanente.org

Editors: Students will be available for interviews and photos at 6:00 p.m., Thursday, May 11, at Westin Pasadena, Fountain Ballroom and Terrace, 191 N. Los Robles, Pasadena, 91101. Contact Vanessa Hernandez, cell phone [phone]. Also, JPEG photos available with complete biographies by contacting Kaiser Permanente Media Relations 626-405-5534.