Doctors Academy honors students at Sunnyside High School
For those involved in the Doctors Academy program at Sunnyside High School, the end-of-the-year ceremony on May 18 had a lot of significance.
For starters the graduating students finished their senior year in-person, after the COVID-19 pandemic sent them to virtual learning at the end of their sophomore year.
Also, this year’s ceremony was indoors and graduating students were able to walk to the stage with their families after the 2019 ceremony was cancelled, and last year’s ceremony was outdoors but only for those graduating seniors.
This year, the ceremony recognized not only the graduating seniors but also the rest of the students in the program including incoming freshmen who were part of the Junior Doctors Academy program at their middle school.
“It’s amazing that we have the opportunity to get together and have the students celebrated for all the work that they’ve done, and to have families and parents join them,” said Dr. Katherine A. Flores, director of the UCSF Fresno Latino Center for Medical Education and Research.
Flores is the founding director of the Doctors Academy program in 1999 at Sunnyside High. The program began as a partnership between UCSF Fresno, Fresno Unified School District, and the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools.
The Doctors Academy also has a program at Caruthers High School, which graduated 22 seniors on May 19.
“We’re just very excited to be able to honor the students for their hard work over the last not just the last year but the last however many years they’ve been in the academy, some of them it’s been four years. For those who’ve been the middle school, it’s been six years. So yeah, very excited,” Flores said.
The Doctors Academy was not completely back to pre-pandemic schedule. The 2021 summer internship program for the incoming seniors was held virtually and universities hadn’t opened for field trips until a few weeks ago, Flores said.
Since she was little, 17-year-old Sunnyside valedictorian Luisa Torralba wanted to be a doctor.
“I knew since I was little I wanted to go in the medical field and then I heard of this program and saw an opportunity to like to explore more careers in the medical field. And then I also saw some help because I came from a low-income family, I didn’t think it would be possible,” said Torralba of going to college. “And then DA made this possible.”
Torralba, the first of her family to go to college, is a Dell Scholar recipient and plans to attend Fresno State and major in biology with the goal to attend medical school at UC Davis and become an OBGYN and specialize in women’s health.
Valedictorian Gwendolyne Aguilar, who will be heading to Stanford University to major in human biology, said the Doctors Academy was a pathway that would help her get to where she needs it to be to become a doctor, more specifically a trauma surgeon.
Aguilar, who is also a first-generation college student, said probably never would have thought that she could go to Stanford if it wasn’t because of the Doctors Academy program.
“They definitely empower you enough and encourage you to actually apply, which is I mean, I wouldn’t have applied if I wasn’t in the program. I wouldn’t have thought I would have gotten in.”
Krista Faith González said she ended up coming to Fresno Unified School District because of the Doctors Academy program.
“I know that they provide so many opportunities, we get an internship, we get, you know, summer school experience every year, as well as getting a merit scholarship at the end of our year. And it just provided so many more opportunities. That’s why I came here,” said González, who is graduating as valedictorian and is going to Cornell University in New York.
González said she never thought she could get admitted to an Ivy League school, so when she got the letter that admitted her earlier, she knew that was huge.
Sunnyside principal Michele Anderson said students in the program as well as the school team and their partners at UCSF have done an amazing job in “a really difficult challenging time.”
“I look around the room, and I know that our world is in great hands. So, thank you students for your continued effort and work through the program and I wish you all the best of luck as you move forward,” Anderson said. “All of that wouldn’t be possible, right without this program, and our amazing partnership again with UCSF and the people that work tirelessly here at Sunnyside.”
“This pandemic has revealed the significant need for more health professionals and health professionals who understand the culture of the community in our valley. It’s revealed to us the need to have a variety of health professionals, not just doctors, but nurses, public health professionals, mental health workers,” Flores said.
“So, it’s very important that all our students out in our community consider entering a health professional not just for their own benefit but for the benefit of the entire community.”
