Reaching Back to Prime the Pipeline
California and the U.S. are becoming increasingly diverse, yet Black and Latinx communities are underrepresented both in medical schools and the health professions. It is vital to have clinicians and researchers who come from the communities most affected by health disparities as illuminated by the COVID-19 pandemic. To meet this challenge, faculty members in the ZSFG Department of Medicine are reaching back to help high school and college students from communities underrepresented in medicine develop science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) skills and provide early exposure to medicine and research. With their deep lived experience of health inequities, community connections, and cultural wealth, these youth will transform the future of medicine. In this issue of the ZSFG DOM Newsletter, we learn about programs in our department.