WEB EXTRA!The University of California, Los Angeles, has three of the four available types of Title VII grants. One grant supports residency training in urban areas. The program would not survive without the federal support.
"Our clinic is located in a federally designated health professional shortage area and serves an immigrant population of which 70 percent are uninsured," said Patrick Dowling, M.D., M.P.H., professor and chair of the family medicine department at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine.
"Funding in predoctoral programs allows us to place students in underserved settings, including two to three homeless shelters," said Dowling. "It also allowed us to build a Web-based teaching curriculum of dermatology cases that could be used all over the country."
Dowling said an administrative academic unit grant supports UCLA's research infrastructure unit, particularly for junior faculty. It also allowed the department to develop a practice-based network with a large consortium of community clinics that serve the underserved.
"According to the Census Bureau, LA County is now the poverty capital of the country," said Dowling. "It is also one of the wealthiest areas, which means we have a widening gap between the haves and have-nots."
Dowling said the grants allow the department to reach beyond the West Side of Los Angeles and expose residents and students to the needs of the underserved.
"The loss of such funds would have a devastating impact on our ability to recruit and train residents and students to work with underserved and multicultural populations," he said.
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