Rays of sun the Coachella Valley wants to harness danced off the reflective glass windows as Selina Moreno bounded into an intro-to-chemistry class at the California State University, San Bernardino campus in Palm Desert.

Moreno, a single parent, is so gung-ho about her career path that she has entered two lotteries at the university. The first, to become a dental hygienist. The second, to become a registered nurse.

Renz Cornejo, a classmate, plans to pursue a medical career. “If it's at all possible, I'd like to be an M.D.,” he said.

Together, they are not only building their futures.

They are two of thousands of students who factor into an equation by Coachella Valley leaders to help the valley grow economically as a leader in health care and life sciences by positioning the Cal State and University of California, Riverside, Palm Desert Graduate Center as a land grant institution, which is a school that generally focuses on the teaching of agriculture, science and engineering.

The vision is not a pipe dream. One day, medical students and research scientists could pass through the same doors.

With UC Riverside landing approval from the University of California Board of Regents in 2008 to establish the first new public medical school to be built in California in 40 years, educators and hospital executives have formed alliances to explore ways to develop teaching capacity at Coachella Valley hospitals and medical research programs at its schools.

Establishing residency and research programs in the Coachella Valley is a blueprint strategy.

“UC Riverside is not building a hospital,” so there are high expectations the new medical school will work with Desert Regional Medical Center on the residency component that will begin in 2012, said Karolee Sowle, chief executive officer of Desert Regional Medical Center.

“We are an important hospital to them because it is a full-service hospital that provides tertiary care,” she said.

“We've worked with UC Riverside from the moment this was announced,” said Sowle, adding she has high hopes for the valley to play an integral role in the UCR medical school.

The reason is simple: Getting medical students here will make a difference in improving the quality of place in the Coachella Valley, Sowle said, which is another blueprint goal. “Doctors tend to want to live and work where they train.”

With the desert already being a spot known for its aesthetics, augmenting it with a strong workforce of doctors adds to quality of life.

Hiring an expert

Affirmation that prospects are strong to link valley hospitals with UCR research and residency programs came days ago when Dr. G. Richard Olds, chair of the department of medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, was named founding dean of UC Riverside Medical School. Olds will assume his new position by Feb. 1.

He is an internationally recognized expert in medical education and research in the fields of international health, infectious disease and parasitology.

And he's already visited the region, as a part of the medical school he is likely to work on from the very beginning.

Kathy Barton, spokeswoman for the new medical school, said no determination has yet been made as to the locations that Olds will recommend for hospital residency programs as he leads the effort to build a new medical school for Riverside.

Cement is being poured for the Health Sciences Building at UC Riverside, the first new building for the medical school, and the university's Medical Sciences building is being renovated.

Within 10 years, the university plans to develop a medical school campus on the west side of the 215 Freeway in Riverside and intends to use hospitals in Riverside and San Bernardino counties as teaching sites.

“Many hospitals throughout the two-county region have expressed an interest in participating in residency programs,” she said.

As chairman of medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Olds led 11 separate academic divisions and 280 faculty members to train more than 800 medical students, 100 residents and 70 fellows. Last year, the department conducted $27 million in medical research.

The Medical College's teaching hospital in Milwaukee, Froedtert, ranks in the nation's top 10 in a nationally recognized scorecard by University HealthSystem Consortium that measures the quality of major academic medical centers.

“Experience has proven that many technologies and companies get spun out of medical schools,” said Carolyn Stark, executive director of UC Riverside Palm Desert Graduate Center.

“Having a medical school in the region does a lot to advance research. It would be a huge step in advancing the blueprint.”

Research opportunities and life science businesses — and incubators — are the natural outgrowth of medical schools, hospitals and affiliate universities.

“There are many opportunities for collaboration between the medical school and academic departments of UCR that are heavily involved already in health sciences and research,” Barton said.

“I'm sure he'll look at involvement with the UC Riverside, Palm Desert, but it's way too early to know what it will look like.”

Fred Jandt, dean of Cal State, San Bernardino at Palm Desert, said the local campus with its nursing program in place is looking at the prospect of adding a bachelor's degree in nutrition to the curriculum.

“We met with a representative of UC Riverside Medical School and gave a tour of our Palm Desert Health Sciences Building,” he said.

“We discussed in general terms ways we could cooperate in the future and look forward to doing so.”

Urgency underscored

The Cal State San Bernardino Palm Desert campus is also the umbrella organization for the Coachella Valley Health Collaborative and home of the Palm Springs Institute for Environmental Sustainability, which just completed two research projects on air quality.

Another significant player in the health care and life science initiative is College of the Desert in Palm Desert.

“The medical school will be a great benefit to Southern California, but particularly to Riverside County,” said COD president Jerry Patton.

“It will have an impact on our campus because of our nursing programs. We're also looking at the possibilities of establishing other Allied Health programs that tie into the medical field.”

Recently, the California Hospital Association spearheaded an initiative to talk about ways to tap stimulus money to train Allied Health professionals in fields from radiation therapy to lab technology.

As the demand for medical care increases, Patton said, health care institutions will need increased personnel in patient care, as well as in support occupations that include accounting, information technology and medical billing.

“We will be looking at prospects to offer classes in these allied health-related fields,” Patton said.

Though not yet determined, those academic programs may cross many fields and include clinical laboratory technologists, EKG technologists, health technicians, emergency medical technicians, opticians, pharmacists, nutritionists, physical therapists and — given the valley's demographics — geriatric care.

A recent study by the California Wellness Foundation underscores the urgency behind this initiative. To meet the needs of the state's population in 2030, the report said California must maintain an allied health workforce of about 988,000.

Yet, the study found, the state education system is only on track to train and certify 634,000 allied health workers.

Kim McNulty, program coordinator for the Coachella Valley Economic Partnership's Career Pathway program, said those numbers should represent a call to action for anyone concerned about health, both physically and financially.

For years, the Desert Healthcare District has echoed that call.

As part of the blueprint roll-out on Oct. 23, Desert Healthcare District awarded a $311,000 grant to the Coachella Valley Economic Partnership's Career Pathways program to extend its commitment to link students to education and training that's needed to attain high-paying jobs in the health care field.

The grant enables CVEP to continue the progress of its Healthcare Industry Council, which brings hospitals, health professionals and industry representatives together with valley educators.

It helps continue the regional coordination that's needed for high school health academy students to gain early work experience in the health care field.

Internships, job shadowing and mentoring programs are also part of the strategy.

Community care

Hospitals, universities and the Desert Healthcare District are focused on education, as part of the blueprint strategy.

But other strategies deal with the effects our economy — poverty, unemployment and insurance — has on the valley's quality of life.

That's spurred discussion among health care professionals here about funding sources and opportunities to get doctors to man community-based clinics across the Coachella Valley.

“We tend to think of big trauma centers when we think of health care,” said Sowle of Desert Regional.

“Yet, most health care and wellness and aging takes place in wellness centers and adequate primary care centers.”

Two bilingual medical and social service centers operated by the Borrego Community Health Foundation are already in place: Cathedral City, Thermal and soon Desert Hot Springs — if a $12 million federal stimulus grant comes through to employ up to 10 doctors.

It's a community care strategy that's not foreign to Olds.

Ernest Levister, a clinical professor of medicine at UC Irvine, said Olds brings a unique set of skills to the job, including broad international experience with people of diverse backgrounds on issues of cultural sensitivity.

“His selection attests to the medical school's commitment to live up to its mission to improve the health of medically under-served populations in the Inland Empire,” Levister said.