Meet Carlos Reales. Carlos attends Castlemont High School in Oakland and is a student in Alameda Health System’s (AHS) HealthPATH program. HealthPATH is a workforce development initiative of AHS that prepares youth and young adults for healthcare careers.
“I want to be a doctor. I got into health care to help my grandmother—she has type 2 diabetes. It makes me happy and it makes her happy, and I just love seeing her smile.
MIMS helped bring it to life, watching and just experiencing how it feels to be a doctor at work.
My grandmother used to take care of me when I was young, and now I take care of her. I’m the oldest in my family. My parents work, so I take care of my younger brother and sister, take them to school. I help with the cooking and cleaning. The MIMS internship taught me how to fix my brother’s cut and tell my grandmother good foods for her to eat.
As a doctor, I want to give back to the community. I love sports and want to open my own sports medicine clinic, provide free physicals, and get other doctors to come and help too.
MIMS introduced me to connections with people and a network of hospitals. We went to Highland, Kaiser, and UCSF and I saw how health care can be fun. Maybe people think it’s boring or it’s scary if you’re a surgeon and you see all that blood, but saving someone’s life makes you feel good about yourself.” ~ Carlos
Through internships and other work‐based learning experiences at AHS’s network of hospitals and wellness centers, HealthPATH exposes young people to career opportunities in the healthcare field while promoting academic excellence and teaching skills for life success. HealthPATH’s ultimate goal is to cultivate a pipeline of diverse and culturally competent healthcare workers who will become the future workforce of AHS.
To learn more about Carlos and other HealthPATH students visit the Oakland Youth Story Bank Website.