Our lifespan increases when we have access to primary care and a regular doctor we trust.
While California has become increasingly diverse, the medical profession has not kept pace. Across regional shortages, these gaps exacerbate health disparities.
For Black patients, access to a Black primary care doctor has been found to correspond to a 31-day increase in life expectancy.
Only 6% of California physicians are Latino despite making up 40% of the population. Latinos are more likely than any other group to lack access to a primary care physician.
Our Mission
The California Medicine Coalition is dedicated to increasing the diversity and supply of California’s primary care workforce.
Our Vision
We envision a California in which communities underrepresented in medicine are healthy and have access to quality, culturally dynamic health care.
Our Journey
In 2016, Dr. Coyness Ennix, Jr., a long-time Bay Area cardiac surgeon, graduate and Trustee of Meharry Medical College, sat in a Meharry Trustee meeting. The presentation that day shared striking data; not only had the number of Black male physicians not increased in the last 40 years, but was declining. As the first historically Black school of medicine in the United States, the institution shared with its board their determination to embark on new efforts to reverse that trend.
Upon returning to the Bay Area, and recognizing the severe physician shortage facing the state, Dr. Ennix put forward a call to action for a California Medicine. Following the blueprint of the recently formed California Law Pathway, he gathered a critical mass of health workforce experts and higher education leaders ready, and determined to forge a new path to address the glaring gaps in California’s physician workforce.
Since its launch, CMC has brought together over 200 stakeholders across healthcare, education, philanthropy, and public policy.
This initial work led to the design of the California Medicine Scholars Program, now operating through the California Department of Health Access and Information. In 2022, CMC incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and continues to lead equity-driven initiatives across the state.