Founded by the UCSF Fresno Latino Center for Medical Education and Research to encourage disadvantaged students to focus on careers in health and medicine, UCSF Fresno Selma High Schools Doctors Academy is having a positive effect on students who have graduated from the program. Originally, Selma High Schools Doctors Academy was launched at Sunnyside High School in Fresno.

The rural Doctors Academy programs were started six years ago at Selma High School and Caruthers High School, said Mark Babiarz, principal at Selma High School.

Babiarz said the Doctors Academy came to Selma High School with the goal to prepare high school students to become competitive applicants to four-year universities by providing them with a rigorous academic program that includes experience in research and clinical settings, service learning and exposure to universities and colleges.

An important part of Selma High Schools Doctors Academy is the college trips that are made available to the students.

The Doctors Academy college trips have included Stanford University, UCLA, UCSF School of Medicine, UC Davis and USC, said Babiarz.

Laura Prez, a Selma High Doctors Academy graduate in 2011, is currently a third-year undergraduate at UC Berkeley with a major in molecular environmental biology.

The first time Prez visited UC Berkeley was when she was a part of Selma Highs Doctors Academy.

Once I stepped onto the UC Berkeley campus, I knew that it would be a place that would foster my way of thinking and growth in higher education, said Prez. Those trips exposed me to places beyond the Central Valley that I might not have visited otherwise. I think getting a feel of a different environment was crucial in helping me figure out where it was that I wanted to be after graduation, something that not a lot of underprivileged students have the chance to experience. In some sense, it gave me a chance at having a choice.

Upon graduation from high school and entering into a college, students whove been in the Doctors Academy are better able to handle the rigors of college, said Babiarz.

The way they provided tutors and other members to prepare me on taking proper notes, how to be committed to my studies, how to be a professional in general, how to understand how college life would be like and to become a successful person in life really prepared me for college life, said Alexandra Reyes, a Selma High School Doctors Academy graduate in 2012 and current nursing major at Fresno City College.

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Graduates applaud Selma Highs Doctors Academy program