Docs Working in Poor Neighborhoods Get Student Loan Help

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Docs Working in Poor Neighborhoods Get Student Loan Help
Aug. 17, 2009
Ivan Mejia--EFE

Hundreds of newly minted physicians can benefit from a California program that offers them help paying off their student loans in exchange for a commitment to work three years in poor neighborhoods.

"With this program we want to bring more doctors to work in medical centers in underserved communities," state Assemblyman Hector De la Torre (D-Southgate) told Efe.

The Steven M. Thompson Program to help California doctors pay off their student loans was created in 2005, but since doctors were asked to pay a voluntary annual quota the money collected was very little, the lawmaker said.

De la Torre said that last year he introduced the AB-2439 bill that went into effect in January 2009, so that every two years when more than 70,000 California doctors renew their medical licenses, they will be obliged to contribute $50 each to create a fund for the grants. In this way it is estimated that more than $1.6 million will be collected.

Among the 16 doctors favored this year, Dr. Kyoko Pena works in the Gardner Family Clinic in Gilroy.

"I graduated from Temple University's school of medicine in Philadelphia and did my residency at the University of Pennsylvania (hospital), and when I began working in 2006 I owed the government $200,000," she told Efe.

"In July they approved my grant and after the three years of community service I will owe $100,000," Pena said, adding that afterwards she will seek other programs to pay the rest.

Dr. Jorge Rubal, a graduate from the University of California, Irvine, began in practice last year at the Community Health Alliance of Pasadena.

"At the end of my residency in 2008, my worry was about the kind of work I'd have to find to be able to pay off that $150,000 debt," Rubal told Efe.

"For me this grant is a blessing, because it gives me the chance to work with my community where they most need doctors who speak Spanish," he said.

Rubal said that his 3-year commitment ends in 2012, by which time he will have been able to pay off $105,000, the maximum amount the program offers. Afterwards he is thinking of asking for an extension.

At the same clinic, Luis Artavia, director of family medicine, who in order to study medicine at the University of Southern California went $200,000 in debt, began paying it off in exchange for a 4-year commitment in a different federal-government program to work in underserved neighborhoods.

When he finished the program last year, he still owed $60,000 and so applied for a Thompson grant, so that when he finishes his new commitment in 2010 he will have paid off his entire debt.

"When a lot of doctors start work they look for employment where the pay is best, which is in private hospitals, because that way they can pay their debt and survive," Artavia said.

"What's wonderful about this program is that it lets us doctors do what we want, which is to work with people who have no health insurance and are the most in need," he said.

For his part, Alejandro Astorga, who owes $100,000 to the government incurred by studying for two master's degrees in health care to work as a medical assistant, said that a program similar to the Thompson grants, with federal funding, is administered by the National Health Service Corps.

"Working in these clinics for poor people, like the ones I went to with my family when I was little, makes me feel useful," he said.


Source: Copyright (C) 2009. Agencia EFE S.A.