Hi all,
We're recruiting now for our Sonoma County HealthCorps program (Northern California, next to Napa). I myself was a Member here at one of our health centers and first learned about the program on studentdoctor while completing a postbacc. The program is extraordinary and tremendously eye-opening-- you get patient interactions that are life changing & 1700 hours of health center immersion. While the roles change from year to year depending on the healthcare focus areas, I shadowed providers by default as I was brought into appointments to offer assistance to patients. This next year will focus on getting people coverage and ensuring they understand their benefits, addressing childhood obesity, offering the senior population increased access, and expanding services to veterans. In community health, this, for our patients, translates into understanding how socioeconomic pressures affect their lives and response to their healthcare. You will become quite comfortable with a broader scope of well-being beyond simply offering high quality clinical care. One of the biggest questions/obstacles we face is how do patients access and utilize their care-- a constant learning process.
The program completely changes how you view medicine, it offers you the opportunity to truly look at how medicine is practiced and managed for underserved populations. You work side by side with providers, front-line staff, medical assistants, nurses, application workers, case management staff, fiscal and administrative staff, you run health education group visits, assist patients in their understanding of services, and help create better care coordination to increase compliance, you will attend community meetings on target issues (Maternal and Child Health, Migrant populations, Reproductive Health, increasing Public Health/Prevention & Benefits Access, health reform, and on), and you will learn about the creativity mobilized to address the barriers to care facing both providers and patients. Moreover, you will get to hear from patients and learn from them. It is, in essence, a year of shadowing patients and their experiences with health care-- I would like to say that nothing could be more valuable.
Almost every Member comes out the other end with an entirely revised view on how to care for patients. While the year contains tremendous ups and downs across the board from learning the community health landscape, to working within an organization overseeing multiple job & management roles, and all on a really tight budget, this program is definitely for those committed to serving the patient populations so in need of services, creativity, and help navigating a complex healthcare system. This if for people who, in theory and with limited experience, understand the complexity of providing care for the underserved but feel they need to experience it firsthand when determining their future role as healthcare providers.
Please feel free to message me if you have any questions about the program in general. If you're interested in applying, please let me know and I'd be happy to answer your questions. I must say that we do require the ability to provide services in conversational Spanish.
