Long Beach’s St. Mary Medical Center part of nurse education program
CommonSpirit Health, the parent company of Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, has pledged $100 million over 10 years to Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles and other universities nationwide to expand nurse-training programs for minorities.
Drew University, a private, historically Black graduate school in Willowbrook, has been training medical personnel since 1966. The grant will expand capacity at the school so more nursing students can be admitted, and establish mentorship programs for high school students, ensuring they get the courses necessary for a career in nursing.
Dignity Health has eight Southern California hospitals, including in downtown Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley and San Bernardino.
But St. Mary Medical Center is the closest CommonSpirit hospital to Drew University and as such, will participate in the partnership. There are no details about how much support Drew will get or how St. Mary will benefit.
But increasing the number of health care workers would help everyone, officials said.
“It is unfortunate that St. Mary Medical Center, and health care organizations across the nation, are all experiencing nursing and other health care workforce shortages,” Carolyn Caldwell, CEO and president of St. Mary Medical Center, said. “The past two years have had a dramatic impact on the personal and professional lives of all health care professionals.”
Caldwell declined to give specific figures on vacancies. But the hospital, she said, has instituted programs to help retain the nurses and other workers already at St. Mary.
“We have established an employee wellness committee to focus on employee recognition and wellness activities,” she said. “We perform leader rounding to maintain ongoing dialogue with frontline staff, (and) offer scholarships to selected nurse residents.”
Charles R. Drew University was chosen for the partnership specifically because of its focus on minority students. Recent studies show only 22.2% of Black adults reported being of the same race as their health care provider, compared to 73.8% of White adults.
“In addition to clinical excellence, our students are focused on social justice and health equity for underserved populations in our surrounding communities,” said Dr. David M. Carlisle, Drew University’s president and CEO.
“Expanding our program helps increase their impact,” he added, “and the likelihood that diverse patients have access to a provider who looks like them.”
Charity M’samalia Chimwala-Selico, a student at Drew, said it is easier for patients to trust a provider who shares cultures and backgrounds.
“Professors who look like us and have experienced a similar background in nursing and bringing us into these spaces,” she said, “is important because it creates community.”
The St. Mary staff already meets that standard, Caldwell said.
“At St. Mary Medical Center, we serve a very diverse patient population and our entire workforce reflects the community we serve,” she said in response to a request for a breakdown of the current workforce by ethnicity.
CommonSpirit has partnered with the Morehouse School of Medicine, in Atlanta, to create the 10-year, $100 million program it calls the More in Common Alliance.
Besides the deal with Drew University, CommonSpirit has academic partnerships with Morehouse, Texas’ Baylor College of Medicine and Creighton University, in Omaha, Nebraska. CommonSpirit is providing 100 full-tuition scholarships at Creighton to under-represented students of color.