Inclusion, Diversity, Anti-racism, and Equality (IDARE) | Department of Family and Community Medicine | UC Davis Health

Medical student education:

The UC Davis School of Medicine continues to recruit an exceptional group of students who are singularly interested in primary care:

• Dr. Mika Godzich, our IDARE co-Lead and Residency Director, developed and was the inaugural Director for the School of Medicine Student Coaching Program, and continues to serve as a coach in the program. Our medical school classes are highly diverse, with many first-generation college students. The Coaching Program provides enhanced support to help them become the physicians they hope to be.
• Many Department of Family and Community Medicine members are also engaged with the design and implementation of the UC Davis School of Medicine pre-clerkship curriculum, including serving as Discipline Leads for the Health Equity thread and the I-RESTORE course (Identity formation through REflection, Social analysis, Team-ORientation and Enrichment).
• Required third-year Primary Care Clerkship
  • The Clerkship includes a week-long series of seminars covering a variety of topics related to IDARE efforts, including managing medical and social complexity in primary care, employing a harm reduction approach in practice, advocacy and community health, and using narrative to become a reflective practitioner and improve self-awareness and empathy for patients.
  • Many students are assigned to work with volunteer or full-time faculty preceptors with offices in urban or rural medically underserved areas and who see predominantly low income or otherwise vulnerable individuals.
• Department of Family and Community Medicine faculty and residents provide volunteer precepting to medical students and undergraduates at the UC Davis School of Medicine-affiliated student-run clinics, which serve an array of medically under-served and uninsured groups of individuals, such as people who are unhoused or use drugs, people who engage in sex work, and people from the LGBTQ+ community.

Workforce development:

• Faculty participate in local professional development programs for high school and undergraduate college students who are from underrepresented in medicine groups. These programs, such as Prep Médico, offer mentoring and teaching to foster interest in careers in the health professions.

Residency education:

• Our Family Medicine residents come from diverse backgrounds. Over the past several years more than 35% of our graduates have entered practice in an underserved urban or rural setting.
• We are committed to increasing the number of family physicians from groups that are underrepresented in medicine, and to preparing them to provide care in communities that historically have been marginalized and under-resourced.
• We have long-standing and well-developed clinical training partnerships with three local Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs): One Community Health, CommuniCare, and the Sacramento County Health Center. Starting in 2023-2024, two-thirds of our residents will have all of their continuity clinic at either CommuniCare or One Community Health. The other third of residents will have 60% of their clinic at our hospital-based clinic at our academic medical center and their remaining clinic at the Sacramento County Health Center.
• Sacramento has the largest population of Afghan refugees in the U.S., many of whom we care for at our clinical sites.
• All our residents have clinical experiences in gender affirming care as part of their core training.
• Our residents receive training in structural competency and cultural humility to ensure that they recognize the breadth of forces impacting individuals’ and communities’ health. 

Fellow education:

• Alicia Agnoli and Dr. MK Orsulak are a part of the Addiction Medicine Fellowship team which will have its first Family Medicine Addiction Medicine Fellow in the 2023-2024 academic year.

Much of the work pursued by our faculty is relevant to IDARE goals. Examples include:

• Leveraging the strengths of community-based organizations to eliminate disparities in pregnancy-related health outcomes for Black birthing people in Sacramento (Dr. Adeola Oni-Orisan)
• Better understanding and addressing transportation barriers affecting outcomes in patients receiving hemodialysis and those with other health issues (Dr. Na’amah Razon)
• Examining the influence of medical school admissions processes on the diversity and representativeness of the physician workforce (Dr. Anthony Jerant and Dr. Peter Franks)
• Studying patient socio-demographic factors including race associated with urine drug monitoring in and tapering of long-term opioid therapy (Dr. Alicia Agnoli).
• Andrew Jones participates in the UC Office of the President’s Primary Care Collaborative (PCC), which seeks to improve care of common and impactful health conditions UC-wide. The current focus of PCC efforts is to develop, widely implement, and evaluate the effects of interventions to reduce disparities in hypertension control among Black people.

• We have robust clinical partnerships with three local Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs): One Community Health, CommuniCare, and the Sacramento County Health Center.
• Our Ellison Ambulatory Care Center Family Medicine Clinic, on the UC Davis Health campus, also serves a highly diverse patient population, with many minimally insured patients, and otherwise vulnerable individuals.
• Our inpatient medical, obstetrical, and newborn services at UC Davis Medical Center are also focused heavily on care of medically underserved and vulnerable people and include the care of uninsured patients.

• Sheila Attaie, our DFCM Advocacy Lead, serves on the Legislative Affairs Committee of the California Academy of Family Physicians (CAFP). She is very active in the local Sacramento Valley Chapter for CAFP and leads resolution writing workshops with the residents and community physicians to advance policy within the CAFP and AAFP. Additionally, as a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, she continues to speak out on reproductive justice topics in op-eds and expert testimony for national news outlets. 
• Anthony Jerant, Department Chair, is co-Executive Sponsor for the Advance Health Equity and Address Disparities (AHEAD) imperative of the current UC Davis Health Clinical Strategic Plan, providing strategic direction for its activities and representing the project among UCDH leadership. AHEAD is pursuing numerous activities and goals across five Initiatives: 1) approaching all patient care with an equity lens; 2) building trust with the communities we serve; 3) advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in our workforce and institutional culture; 4) establishing and maintaining effective DEI governance and accountability structures; and 5) more optimally pursuing UCD Health’s mission as an anchor institution.

Homelessness and health

• MK Orsulak serves as the program lead for the Sacramento County Homelessness and Health programs, including leading a mobile medical outreach team that provides direct care to encampments. She has also worked with UC Health to help create and implement the UC Davis Homelessness and Health Strategic Plan to better provide care for people experiencing homelessness.
• Kate Richards started as an undergraduate volunteer at Willow Clinic, a clinic which operates inside of one of Sacramento’s shelters for people experiencing homelessness, in 2009 and now is the co-medical director. During this time, she has mentored hundreds of undergraduates, medical students, and NP/PA, many whom are first generation, and has supported them through letters of recommendation for awards and education programs.
• Ian Kim is a physician on CommuniCare’s Mobile Medicine Team, which provides care to people experiencing homelessness at encampments, shelters, transitional housing, and other community programs in Yolo County.

Addiction medicine

• Alicia Agnoli serves as the medical director of Joan Viteri Memorial Clinic, a UC Davis Student Run clinic that serves people who use drugs, people who live outside, and people engaging in sex work.
• Agnoli is also on the Board of Directors for Harm Reduction Services, one of Sacramento’s syringe access programs.