Future Doctors Honored for Advancing Equal Care; Advocates for Patients' Cultural Needs Awarded $35,000 in Scholarships.

LOS ANGELES -- Kaiser Permanente awarded seven Southern California medical students the second annual Kaiser Permanente Oliver Goldsmith, M.D. Scholarship for the Promotion and Advancement of Culturally Responsive Care.

The Goldsmith Scholarship celebrates students' efforts to improve the healthcare of underserved communities while raising awareness to the unique medical issues that affect ethnic minorities. Awardees receive a $5,000 scholarship, mentoring from a KP clinician, and a clinical rotation at a KP facility.

"The key to medicine is being able to communicate with patients. If you can't communicate with patients, it doesn't matter how smart you are -- you don't have it," said Jeffrey Weisz, MD, Executive Medical Director of the Southern California Permanente Medical Group, before presenting the awards. "But if people understand what you're saying and really feel that you care about them, that's the key to practicing medicine."

"We have a wide diversity in Southern California and we need to be committed to this diversity -- we have to understand what people think, what they're afraid of, what their diseases are and be able to respond to that. If you can't communicate with someone in their own language, there's a loss," he added, and commended the medical students for their many accomplishments.

Among the recipients was Jose Avalos of South Central Los Angeles, who has recruited, mentored, and advocated for medical students from underrepresented ethnic groups. Avalos attends the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and is the first student member of the California Latino Medical Association. Fluent in Spanish, he spent a summer researching California's need for bilingual physicians.

Shabnam Besimanto of Encino attends the UC Irvine College of Medicine and set up a student-run clinic that provides follow-up care to Santa Ana's indigent, uninsured population in a community without a county hospital. She has volunteered more than 900 hours, screened more than 100 children, worked in Quito, Ecuador with children with cerebral palsy, and studied Spanish in Barcelona.

Candace Jones of Palms said she first witnessed disproportionate sickness and affliction among low income populations and racial minorities 15 years ago as a hospital volunteer. The UCLA medical student has a master's degree in public health, and is the founder and medical director of a wellness fair that provided health screenings for more than 125 people last year. An experienced researcher and program evaluator, her work has led to funding and improvements in nonprofit programs for African-American women with AIDS.

Kristen Ochoa of Rosemead worked as an outreach worker, counselor, clinic coordinator, program director, and co-investigator before attending the USC Keck School of Medicine. She has trained healthcare workers internationally on needle exchange, HIV, hepatitis, overdose and injection drug use. She is one of the founders of a student movement on her campus to integrate cultural competency into the medical curriculum, winning several required classroom hours now dedicated to the subject.

Kameelah Philips of Los Feliz also attends USC and is a second-time recipient of the Goldsmith Scholarship. She served as the Education Team Leader for the "Save A Million Lives" HIV Medical Mission to Ghana, and co-coordinates the American Medical Women's Association's Domestic Violence Month programs to sensitize medical students to abused women's needs. She provides patient education and counseling regarding their HIV status, diabetes and hypertension at the T.H.E. Clinic in Inglewood. The African-American medical student speaks Spanish and is an active member of the Latino Medical Association.

Eric Sandoval of Irvine remembers translating for his parents during doctor visits as a child and is committed to improving culturally responsive care. At UC Irvine he is the co-chair of the Latino Medical Student Association (LMSA), and organizes events to educate medical students and staff on the health issues that affect Latinos. He participated in a four-week clinical service rotation in Ecuador, and volunteers at the student-run clinic Clinica Carino in Santa Ana.

Candace Taylor of Palms holds a master's degree in public health from UCLA, and currently attends USC. She volunteers in a monthly "mini-medical school" program for children at Tom Bradley Elementary School, and mentors an undergraduate student on her campus. She plans to pursue a career in pediatrics, specializing in endocrinology to address the increasing obesity epidemic, and is working on a project that helps adolescent Latinas at risk for diabetes to improve their diet.

In January 2004, SCPMG Medical Director Jeffrey Weisz, MD, initiated the scholarship in honor of Oliver Goldsmith, MD, a recently retired SCPMG Medical Director, in recognition of his important contributions to diversity. While serving as Medical Director of SCPMG from 1994 to 2003, Dr. Goldsmith was chair of the Kaiser Permanente National Diversity Council and established the SCPMG Physician Diversity Advisory Committee. In addition, his leadership and support was instrumental in the development of the Culturally Responsive Care (CRC) Initiative, which emphasizes the delivery of culturally responsive care to Kaiser Permanente's diverse patient population. This initiative aims to ensure that clinicians are prepared to meet the cultural and linguistic needs of patients and that they are made aware of the epidemiologic incidence of disease among different racial, ethnic and cultural groups.

The Oliver Goldsmith, M.D. Scholarship for the Promotion and Advancement of Culturally Responsive Care honors second- or third-year medical/osteopathic students who have demonstrated commitment to the advancement of culturally responsive care (CRC) through community service, clinical volunteering, or research.

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: JPEG photos available.