AvenueM: The path from community college to medical school

(SACRAMENTO)

Abigail Almeida slipped on a pair of purple surgical gloves and guided a sharp needle into the rubberized mat before her. Using forceps, she carefully tied thread into precise knots, learning the basics of suturing inside a UC Davis School of Medicine classroom.

Except Almeida is not a medical student - yet.

Almeida and the 41 other students in the room are part of CMSP AvenueM, a UC Davis-led pathway program designed to help community college students prepare for medical school. It encompasses workshops, mentoring, academic advising, internships, shadowing opportunities and the AvenueM Summer Immersion experience.

A highlight for AvenueM pathway scholars is spending two weeks at the UC Davis School of Medicine to learn doctoring skills such as suturing, trauma care and physical exams, and network with physicians and medical students.

For Almeida, who attends College of the Redwoods in Eureka, the two-week Summer Immersion provided a rare chance to see herself on a medical school campus - something she once wasn't sure was possible.

"AvenueM has opened up a lot of accessibility for pathways into medicine," Almeida said. "I've gotten a lot of opportunities out of it, and I see medicine as something that I can actually do now, instead of something that's really far out of reach."

A pipeline created to address physician workforce shortages

This Summer's 42 Summer Immersion scholars are among the more than 200 community college students who have participated in the AvenueM pathway over the past four years.

Launched in 2022 by UC Davis and partner institutions, AvenueM helps community college students navigate the journey from two-year colleges to four-year universities and ultimately medical school. The program aims to draw students into medicine and help alleviate physician workforce shortages in high-need regions, such as rural Northern California, by building and supporting a pipeline of future doctors who have ties to medically underserved communities.

"We want to cultivate local talent from communities of need, for communities of need," said Charlene Green, the UC Davis School of Medicine assistant dean of admissions, outreach and medical pathways.

AvenueM began with a $1.8 million state grant awarded to the Foundation for California Community Colleges under its California Medicine Scholars Program, or CMSP, of which UC Davis is a regional hub.

UC Davis, in turn, partners with 13 community colleges between Solano and Siskiyou counties, advising pre-med students through the transfer process that feeds into three state schools: Cal Poly Humboldt, Sacramento State and UC Davis. AvenueM then offers support as students apply to medical schools.

"It's a long journey to become a physician, and it's a hard journey," Green said. "So we want to make sure our students understand what that journey looks like... We want to provide them with the necessary skills, mentorship, support and tools to make sure they're able to get to the end."

We want to cultivate local talent from communities of need, for communities of need."-Charlene Green, assistant dean of admissions, outreach and medical pathways.

Summer Immersion is hands-on learning

AvenueM provides year-round programming, but the Summer Immersion in June is a key highlight for students.

Summer Immersion includes hands-on workshops in suturing, CPR, blood pressure measurement, physical exams and trauma care. It also includes question-and-answer sessions with physicians, chats with medical students, research opportunities, seminars on medical school admissions and tours of the School of Medicine.

The suturing workshop gave students a chance to practice skills rarely available outside medical school.

Some students quickly got the hang of tying surgical knots with forceps. Others needed more practice.

AvenueM scholars practice life-saving skills such as CPR in a UC Davis School of Medicine lecture hall during Summer Immersion.

Orion Contreras from Del Norte County struggled a bit at first, but wasn't shy about asking for help from Angel Ibarra, one of the fourth-year medical students leading the workshop.

Ibarra, wearing green scrubs, leaned into the table to show Contreras a better threading technique. "You want to give yourself a little more of an angle," he said, explaining how to maneuver the wrist.

Contreras found the workshop valuable, but he was most impressed by how much he learned about the path to medical school.

He now has a clearer understanding of the MCAT, patient-care experience, research opportunities and medical school admissions requirements.

"They clarified a lot here," he said, "and it's really, really helpful."

Contreras is intrigued with the heart and can picture himself serving Humboldt and Del Norte counties as a cardiologist or cardiovascular surgeon. "We're very, very rural and there is no cardiologist working there, like none whatsoever," he said.

Some 200 scholars across four cohorts have taken part in AvenueM.

Pathway leaders are celebrating this summer: A student from an earlier cohort is preparing to start medical school - the first AvenueM participant to reach that milestone.

It's an early sign that the program's long-term goal of cultivating physicians who will return to serve Northern California rural and underserved communities is beginning to take root.