Together We Succeed

Latinx’s comprise over 40% of California’s population, yet only 5% of the overall physician population and 12% of graduating physicians in the state. At this rate, it will take 500 years for the proportion of Latinx physicians to match their proportion in the population. Similar disparities exist for Black/African American populations in California. The lack of diversity in the physician workforce contributes to worse outcomes for patients and perceived lesser quality of care. Over one-third of Latinx students who attend college start at a community college. In the Los Angeles County Community College District which comprises nine colleges and 229,793 students, 72.3% of the students are from underrepresented in medicine (UIM) backgrounds. In order to effectively address the lack of physician workforce diversity, it is critical to properly engage and mentor Latinx and other UIM students while they are at community colleges.

“Together We Succeed” (TWS) will be modeled after our existing “Medical School Readiness” series, a longitudinal 12 month program with monthly workshops, small group sessions, and longitudinal one-on-one mentorship to successfully assist underrepresented in medicine (UIM) students to navigate the medical school application process. Similarly, TWS will empower UIM community college (cc) students aspiring to a health professions career with the confidence, knowledge, skills and behaviors needed to successfully transition to a four-year institution. TWS will provide UIM speakers to instruct on how to navigate the transition to a four-year institution. TWS will also provide a community of support that can validate the experiences of students who are first-generation college-goers or DACA students with mentors who have successfully navigated similar paths. Lastly, TWS will provide small group sessions and one on one mentorship to support students in their journeys. TWS students will develop an actionable plan that aligns with their personal mission. TWS students will eventually rely on the broader MiMentor community for support and further leadership development and personal growth.

Expand existing project, program, or initiative

Together We Succeed would help fill a needed gap in mentorship and leadership development for those pre-health professional Latinx and other UIM students attending Los Angeles Community College District, where a majority of Latinx and Black college-going students reside. TWS would help increase the success of these students in their transition to four-year institutions by increasing transfer rates, academic success and eventual four-year institution graduation rates. TWS would also increase these students’ awareness of viable pathways to health professional careers as well as their pursuit and persistence in those pathways. Finally, TWS would increase the leadership skills of community college pre-health professional students so that they can contribute not only by mentoring other students, but also by participating in relevant pre-health professional activities in their respective Los Angeles County communities where they can make an immediate impact.

TWS will be modeled after MiMentor’s MSR program, which has existed for five years. Our MSR team collects extensive demographic data on our participants, pre-and post-surveys on their confidence, level of support, written, verbal skills development as well as qualitative feedback on personal and pre-professional development and leadership skills. We also collect quantitative data on applications submitted to medical school, interviews and admissions offered. An abstract presented on MSR in 2017 at UCLA showed significant unadjusted bivariate self-reported outcomes on pre- and post-surveys as well as an acceptance rate to medical school of 55%, 10% above the overall national acceptance rate. A more recent analysis of our 2018-2019 cohort revealed an acceptance rate of over 90% for those who applied. We are confident that utilizing similar teams, operations and culturally relevant curriculum will allow us to implement similar analytical tools and achieve positive outcomes for TWS.