CAL POLY TO OFFER NATIVE PHYSICIAN-TRACK PROGRAM
Year long, post-bachelor program is the first in state
Earlier this week, Cal Poly Humboldt announced a new program is set to begin this fall that will prepare postbachelor Native American students for medical school. It will become the first of its kind in the state, and aims to address a lack of doctors in Native American communities in California, including those serving tribal communities locally.
The year-long Huwighurruk (hee-way-gou-duck) Tribal Health Postbaccalaureate Program is named for a term in the Wiyot language, which means plants, grass, leaves, and medicine, according to a news release from Cal Poly Humboldt.
“Humboldt County and Cal Poly Humboldt have served our communities for many years and in these communities of Humboldt and Del Norte counties. We have a number of very significant, federally recognized tribes,” said Dr. Antoinette Martinez, family medicine/OB physician at United Indian Health Services in Humboldt County, who will be the co-director of the program. Cutcha Risling Baldy, former chair of the Native American Studies department, will join her.
Martinez said traditions taught as part of the program will largely be from local mentors — which extends to practices, communications, traditional plant medicines and thought processes like community and kinship. The first year will have about four people in the cohort, she said.
When asked if there's a need for Native American doctors locally, she said, “we need more doctors overall, but we also need more Native doctors to serve our own communities and advocate for improved health care services.”
“It's a dream come true for myself. It's a dream come true for many of the long-gone elders who have passed in this community, as well as the elders who are here now. They dreamt of having their own health care system.”
— Dr. Antoinette Martinez, family medicine/OB physician at United Indian Health Services in Humboldt County, who will be co-director of the program
She emphasized that the number of Native doctors is decreasing.
The program will provide a stipend for eligible students. It will include mentorship and MCAT preparation help, running out of the Indian Teacher and Educational Personnel Program (ITEPP) at Humboldt. According to the release, Biology Professor Amy Sprowles will assist with the program's science courses.
The program targets people who might have been rejected or reached other roadblocks in the hypercompetitive path to becoming a doctor. It's with the UC Davis School of Medicine, which is offering students who complete the program conditional acceptance and funding toward tuition (if the student also has a 3.7 GPA or higher, scores 499 or higher on the MCAT, and completes all the prerequisite courses for the UC Davis School of Medicine). Huwighurruk is supported by a
grant from the Northwest Native American Center for Excellence and funding from the UC Davis School of Medicine.
“This program is meant to be built for the long term,” noted Dr. Eric Crossen, the director of a UC Davis program for native students. He said part of the mission of UC Davis is to help develop a workforce that matches the diverse needs of communities, especially Northern California.
“The hope is that once students graduate from the UC Davis School of Medicine, they'll become doctors for Native American communities in rural and urban areas that are often medically underserved due to a lack of primary care physicians,” a Cal Poly Humboldt news release said.
A similar program between UC Davis, Washington State University and Oregon Health & Science University informed the program.
With goals to shore up the state's medically underserved Native American communities, the program requires students to be citizens or descendants of a federally recognized American Indian/Alaska Native Tribe or California Indian Roll of 1971, be a resident of California, and have demonstrated a history of commitment to practice in the American Indian/Alaska Native community.
“It's a dream come true for myself. It's a dream come true for many of the long-gone elders who have passed in this community, as well as the elders who are here now. They dreamt of having their own health care system,” said Martinez.
An April 22 information session is from 5 to 6 p.m. For more information about the Huwighurruk program, contact tribalhealth@ucdavis.edu.