New grant gives OC nursing students a chance to care for communities they grew up in

As thousands of nursing students graduate this year, they’ll be looking to fill a nursing shortage that hasn’t gotten much better since the pandemic. 

The Hospital Association of Southern California says the nurse vacancy rate is about 30 percent.

Thanks to a new grant just announced Wednesday, Orange County nursing students will get a chance to care for the very communities they grew up in.

The faces seen at UC Irvine may soon be those that make up the frontlines of Orange County hospitals. 

Grad school nursing students like Austin Gonzales, the first in his family to graduate from college.  

“The reason I want to be a nurse is because I don’t want to have any regrets. I know that sounds weird but when I was volunteering with people, I really left with my heart really full. I was always really happy on my ride home,” Gonzales said.

Gonzales said he’s always known he wanted to be a nurse, but paying for nursing school “involves me taking out large sums of loans because I don’t have the filial support to do this – this is something I'm pursuing on my own,” he said.

Gonzales has his hopes set on a $5 million grant and the new nurse-OC program that money will fund. 

CalOptima, which serves the poor and homeless with medical care in Orange County and several partners, will offer stipends to more than 60 nursing students, more than half from underrepresented groups or low income backgrounds.

“The most critical piece is that you have to be willing to commit two years after you graduate serving this community Orange County and there’s a significant need – one in three people in this county have medical. That means that many people are living below the poverty level here,” Dr. Jose Mayorga, executive director of UCI Family Health, said.

The goal is for students to become health care professionals in their communities, and to represent the future patients they’ll care for. 

“We’re really trying to close health disparity gaps – and making sure our vulnerable community has access to care – and that care may be in different languages. Providers who look like them,” Michaell Rose, CalOptima chief health equity officer.

If he's accepted into the program, it will be a full-circle moment for Gonzales. 

“I’ve been on CalOptima my entire life so I do come from a low income family,” Gonzales said. “It feels like home – and it feels like you're giving back to your home. All my roots are here. I want to stay here, give back because it’s home.”