Sutter Health program sends Stanislaus County student to medical school tuition-free

Anaissa Medina of Salida had childhood dreams of becoming a doctor but didn’t have financial resources to see a clear path to achieving her goal.

Medina began medical school last week thanks to a collaboration between a Sutter Health equity program and Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science in Southern California.

The Stanislaus County native was in the first group of five students awarded full-tuition scholarships to attend the nationally accredited medical school, which opened in 2023.

“I am loving it here,” Medina said in a telephone interview this week. “With the amount of resources and support they are giving me, I can now achieve my goal of becoming a physician.”

Medina said her inspiration for helping underserved communities came from watching, as a young girl, her grandmother Juanita encounter serious barriers to health care. Once, her Spanish-speaking grandmother attended a free health fair at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Modesto, where a screening showed her blood pressure was dangerously high.

A lack of insurance stopped the woman from going to the hospital emergency room, but the family discovered a free nonprofit clinic called St. Luke’s Family Practice in Modesto. Family members brought blankets and lined up outside the clinic before the doors opened at 8 a.m.

At the first visit to the clinic, Medina saw her grandmother’s tension melt away when the staff greeted her in Spanish. “She let out a sigh of relief and welled up with tears,” Medina recalled. “She had found the place where she could get help without financial stress.”

Medina often was with her grandparents as a child while her parents — Ernesto and Lorena Medina — worked. She accompanied them to doctor and hospital visits to translate information between her grandparents and medical staff.

When she was 8 to 10 years old, Medina wrote “doctor notes” on slips of paper for family members, revealing her early interest in becoming a physician.

Her parents and grandparents encouraged Medina’s education, and she excelled in science courses at Gregori High School. Medina attended California State University, Stanislaus, and volunteered at Doctors Medical Center, where she saw the acute need for bridging the cultural barriers to health care in Stanislaus County.

As a requirement to apply for medical school, Medina returned to the St. Luke’s clinic to shadow doctors. She ended up working there as a medical assistant.

“We realized how dedicated she was and so we offered her employment,” said Ericka Carranza-Perez, a physician assistant and office manager for the clinic. “She is a well-rounded person. She is kind, empathetic and has the desire to help underserved patients. I think she will make a great doctor.”

Charles Drew University is a historically Black college that for years partnered with UCLA to train physicians to work in disadvantaged areas of Los Angeles. Now, it’s educating future doctors through its own medical school. Medina said she’s excited about the support and plans to take advantage of the school’s learning experiences, such as street medicine programs.

Sutter Health said it made an initial investment of $7.5 million for full-tuition scholarships for five students entering the medical school each year, or a total of 25 scholarships. Sutter’s scholars program aims to increase diversity in the health care professions by “widening pathways for underrepresented aspiring physicians in California,” a recent news release said.

The scholarship recipients were chosen based on academics, personal and professional accomplishments and dedication to community service.

Shortage of primacy care doctors

According to the California Health Care Foundation’s Health Care Almanac , the San Joaquin Valley had 47 primary care physicians per 100,000 people in 2020, the second-lowest ratio compared to other regions of the state and far less than the 60 to 80 recommended.

Sutter Health plans to launch an internal medicine residency and a three-year family practice training program at Memorial Medical Center in Modesto in 2025, with 26 training slots in internal medicine and 13 in family practice. Medina could apply for the resident physician training at Memorial after graduating from medical school, but getting approved would depend on the national resident matching process.

Liz Madison, a Sutter spokeswoman, said there isn’t a formal connection between Sutter’s scholarships for medical students and the new residency programs, though both are designed to address physician shortages in the region.

Charles Drew University said its medical school is responding to the nation’s need for physician diversity and healthcare access in underserved communities.

Medina said her current interest is family medicine and she would like to work in the Central Valley.

“There is a huge need in the Central Valley,” Carranza-Perez said. “People call it a medical wasteland. We do need more providers here.”