Wine Country mentoring program helps teens see medicine as career path

Physicians in Sutter Health’s Sonoma County family medicine residency program not only have young people as patients but also engage with them through Doctors Educating, Advocating and Mentoring (Dr. EAM) Pathways—a comprehensive health care pipeline program that recruits and enrolls minority youth who are underrepresented in medicine. This program addresses education disparities and enhances career opportunities.

Focused primarily on the Roseland area of southwest Santa Rosa, the program provides training for family medicine residents in youth engagement outside the exam room.

Residents mentor boys and girls from elementary school to college age in academics as well as healthy living. The residents develop classroom lessons on topics of nutrition, bike safety, medical interviews and human anatomy as well as informing the students about the contributions to society by minority physicians and scientists.

Each class is provided the opportunity to takes photos of themselves in medical garb to “picture yourself as a doctor.”

Another program, Future Faces of Family Medicine (FFFM), addresses health care disparities along racial and socioeconomic lines by mentoring underrepresented minority high school students and providing avenues to careers in medicine.

Each spring semester, after reviewing applications, leadership selects 15–20 local high school students to participate in the program. Email Dr. Mariah Hansen, HansenM3@sutterhealth.org, for more information on the future faces program.