GME Pathways Back to California
The “GME Pathways Back to California” initiative aims to increase the number of medical students who return to the state for residency and stay to practice in underserved communities. Launched in Spring 2025, CMC is engaging leaders and experts to design a cross-state model that systemically supports and incentivizes the return of California students for residency. The initiative is focusing on increasing residency placements in the following priority specialties: family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, psychiatry and general surgery.
Register for the Convening Series
Mapping the Landscape of Needs & Opportunities
October 24, 2025
Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science
Centering Student Voices in Residency Decisions
February 25, 2026
Virtual, Hosted by the California Medicine Coalition
Presenting a Model for
“Back to California”
June 15, 2026
In-Person, Location TBD
Why a “Return” for Residency
California boasts 4th in the nation for medical school enrollment with over 1600 slots, yet ranks 46th for enrollment positions per thousand population.
Over 55% of California medical school applicants annually leave the state to study medicine.
Among those underrepresented in medicine, only 57% of Latinx Californians and 47% of Black Californians match back into the state for residency.
California has over 4000 residency positions, with rural primary care programs consistently undermatching.
Learn more about the Medical School to Residency Bottleneck in California
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
April 2023. Commissioned by the California Health Care Foundation
GME Startup Solutions
Resources on Need & Efforts to Expand GME. Physicians for a Healthy California
Project Timeline
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With support from the California Health Care Foundation, the Research & Design phase will convene leaders and experts for the design of the model and commission quantitative and qualitative analysis of residency matching, existing residency-focused initiatives to address physician shortages, and understand medical student perspectives.
This phase will also gather broader stakeholder participation across three public convenings held in October 2025, February 2026 and June 2026.
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CMC seeks to secure commitments from an initial network of medical school and residency program partners to test a set of practices as charted out in the proposed model designed in Phase 1. The lessons from the tested practices will lay a foundation to refine and institutionalize the model via institutional, state or federal policy.
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With a refined model, CMC will look to advocating for policy to institutionalize and sustain the tested lessons and practices from the network alongside improved statewide data tools to measure impact on the landscape of the health workforce and health equity.
Advisory Committee
Lupe Alonzo-Diaz, MBA, President and CEO, Physicians for a Healthy California
Daniel E. Dawes, J.D., Senior Vice President of Global Health, Meharry Medical College
Andrea Hayes-Dixon, M.D., FACS, Ph.D., Dean, Howard University College of Medicine
Jeremy Fish, M.D., Founding Director, John Muir Health Family Medicine Residency; Founding Chair, California Academy of Family Physicians Residency Network
Vanessa Grubbs, M.D., CEO and Founder Black Doc Village; Director of Adult Medicine, Baywell Health
Andrea Hayes-Dixon, M.D., Dean of Medicine, Howard University School of Medicine
Sonya Haywood-Harris, M.D., Dean of Medicine, Meharry Medical College
Denise Herd, PH.D, Professor School of Public Health, Community Health Sciences Division Head, HSB Program Director, School of Public Health; Othering and Belonging Institute Associate Director, University of California, Berkeley
Mark Henderson, M.D., Associate Dean of Admissions, University of California Davis School of Medicine
Isaias Iñiguez, Associate Director of Workforce Development, California Primary Care Association
James ET Jackson, M.D., CEO of Alameda County Health System
Jeffrey S. Kim, J.D., Program Director, The California Wellness Foundation
Veronica Mallett, M.D., Executive Director, More in Common Alliance, CommonSpirit Health
Olga Meave, M.D., CEO of Clinica Sierra Vista
Dotun Ogunyemi, M.D., FACOG, MFM, Professor and Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science; Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education; Designated Institutional Official (DIO), College of Medicine at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science
Toyese Oyeyemi, Jr, MPH, MCHES, Executive Director, Social Mission Alliance at the Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity, George Washington University
Kathryn Phillips, MPH, Associate Director, California Health Care Foundation
Pamela J. Simms-Mackey, M.D., FAAP, DIO / Chief of Graduate Medical Education, Chair of Pediatrics, Alameda Health System; 2025 Chair of the American Board of Pediatrics Board Chair
Kevin Smith, M.D., Associate Dean for Academic Programs and Affiliations, Morehouse School of Medicine
Mark Servis, M.D., Vice Dean of Medicine, University of California Davis School of Medicine
Anderson Sunda-Meya, M.D., Dean of College of Health Sciences, Xavier University
O.T. Wendel, PhD, President, A.T. Still University College of Medicine