SACRAMENTO — Medical experts say the United States has a critical shortage of doctors, nurses and other health care workers. Now, a university is responding to the crisis by opening a new school in Sacramento.
A patient whose heart has stopped and requires an airway tube to be inserted. This is the kind of emergency scenario students can train for at the new school on the University of the Pacific (UOP) campus in California's capital.
“This really simulates how we care for patients,” said UOP physician assistant student Alejandra Diaz.
Diaz is one of the students training to become a physician assistant in a 27-month master's degree program.
“It's intense,” she said of the program. “Basically, we're here all day.”
Physician assistants can work with doctors to examine patients, perform procedures, and prescribe medications. The university says these are ways to help solve the health system's backlog.
“There is a huge shortage of health care providers,” said Nicoleta Bugnariou, dean of the UOP Faculty of Health Sciences. “People don’t have access to care and they don’t have to wait for care.”
The new $18 million facility will allow UOP to double the school's number of physician assistant students. 2,000 people applied for just 90 spots.
“Expectations are very high,” Bugnariu said.
It is equipped with the latest technology in operating rooms, examination rooms, and educational tools such as a life-sized virtual human body that students can dissect.
“This is a simulated cadaver system,” says UOP professor Tracy Del Nero.
The campus is located in Sacramento's Oak Park neighborhood, and administrators expect many of their future students to be from this area and other historically disadvantaged areas.
“Our school is really built on a model of intentionally recruiting students from the community and bringing students back into the community,” Bugnariu said.
UOP is also expanding its campus across the street and plans to open a new dental school this summer.
