By james art UC Irvine’s program in medical education for the Latino community has celebrated its 20th anniversaryth anniversary with a spectacular celebration on October 18 featuring some of the nation’s leading voices in health care and higher education.
Joining Steve Goldstein, UC Irvine Vice President for Health Affairs, and UC Irvine President Michael W. Drake in the remarks were Xavier Becerra, Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, and Diana Ramos, Surgeon General of California.
More than 200 people attended the sessions in the Sue Gross Auditorium in the Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences Pavilion, including many PRIME-LC alumni.
A first-of-its-kind program, PRIME-LC has fostered the training of more than 180 physicians who respond to the needs of underserved communities, often becoming advocates for well-being for all.
“What happens in California leads the nation, and the significance of PRIME-LC is that equity is in its design,” Becerra said. “At HHS, we put capital into the design of everything we do.”
Almost all PRIME-LC graduates are making a difference in the community working as attending physicians who practice in neighborhoods with a high percentage of low-income Latino patients, and two-thirds report using their leadership skills to advance the cause of Latino justice in healthcare outside of their medical practices.
“The ‘secret sauce’ of PRIME-LC is finding students suited to serve underserved communities,” said Drake, who served as chancellor of UC Irvine from 2005 to 2014, during PRIME-LC’s early days. “When we started PRIME, we knew if we had done it right by seeing what its graduates were doing three to five years on – and seeing how many had gone on to leadership positions outside of their practices. Graduates of the program serve because they are well trained, and that is what they want to do.”
“The individual students who participate have turned this program from a great idea into an incredible differentiator in the broader Latino community,” Goldstein said.
Based on its early success, UC Irvine’s PRIME-LC program became a model for other institutions, and by 2007, all UC medical schools had begun PRIME programs focused on specific underserved populations. In 2019, UC Irvine continued its bold vision to train physicians who reflect California’s diverse population with the launch of Leadership Education to Promote Diversity – African, Black and Caribbean Communities, the first to specifically address population needs on ABC. In 2021, LEAD-ABC was designated as the second PRIME program on campus. And a PRIME program for the LGBTQ+ community is currently being developed at UC Irvine.
“PRIME-LC brings together the community and diversity of California,” Ramos told PRIME-LC students and alumni in the audience. “Physicians trained by PRIME-LC will be the future of our healthcare. In ten years, we will be practicing medicine in a whole new way, and you will be our leaders.”
Michael J. Stamos, dean of the UC Irvine School of Medicine, introduced Sarah Lopez, a graduate of the first PRIME-LC class, and current PRIME-LC student Carlos Manzanares Felix, who shared their thoughts on what makes their program so important.
“We were all drawn here to make lasting change in health care,” said Lopez, chief medical officer of Zocalo Health, a new health organization dedicated to providing affordable care to Southern California’s Latino community.
The event concluded with Stamos’ heartfelt acknowledgment of Alberto Manetta, a UC Irvine physician, researcher and educator who conceived of PRIME-LC and, with Drake, launched the program in 2004. He died in 2022, and his wife and daughter his Nancy and Katie Manetta, attended the event in his memory.
“Besides his family, my father’s great love was his students,” Katie Manetta said.
“For a program like this to work, it takes passion and dedication,” said Drake, who served as UC’s vice president for health affairs from 2000 to 2005. “And that was Al Manetta, the guy who came to us with the idea to establish a Latin American medical education program. We wanted UC Irvine to be a leader in what medical education should be for the country.”