The South Los Angeles AHEC is hosted by the Community Clinic Association of Los Angeles County (CCALAC). The AHEC develops and implements training opportunities for health professions students and primary care residents in South Los Angeles. In addition, the AHEC promotes primary care career paths for medical students and primary care residents in regional medical schools and physician training programs. The AHEC sponsors a community HealthCorps program and continuing education for member health professionals. CCALAC represents 63 non-profit community and free clinics with over 350 sites in Los Angeles County that serve over 1 million patients each year. Recognizing the daunting challenges faced by community clinics in recruiting and retaining highly-qualified clinical staff, CCALAC actively engages with its members and partners to develop strategies to address critical workforce issues. Among local medical schools, CCALAC has built key relationships with local school leaders and is recognized as a highly-effective workforce development asset for community clinics.
Through outreach to regional schools and training centers, CCALAC recruits primary care physicians, mid-level providers, nurses, dentists and mental health providers as well as builds up the pipeline for graduating students to enter primary care careers. Pipeline activities include presentations about community clinic to students and professors, dissemination of information about careers in community clinics to schools and information about scholarship and loan repayment programs available to those choosing to work in underserved sites. In general, many medical, mid-level and nursing students have had very little, if any, exposure to the great work being done in community clinics and many participants are eager to pursue a community clinic career.
For more information, please contact the Center Director – Alexander Gil.
Click here to view the South Los Angeles AHEC Brochure.