May 19, 2025
Sarai Vences, 19, graduated from the Central Health and Austin Community College MA apprenticeship program in 2024 and hasn’t looked back since.
AUSTIN, Texas– Nine months into her job as a medical assistant with Central Health, Sarai Vences rarely spends much time thinking about her life before health care anymore.
Instead, the 19-year-old opts to focus on the work, tending to Travis County residents with low income who need care the most.
But one day recently, Vences said, she experienced déjà vu. Looking across the examination room, her why came rushing back.
“The patient looked exactly like my mom,” said Vences, who performs administrative and clinical tasks in a medical setting.
“That just hit so much harder.”
Vences has since realized two things: both the impact she’s making in the community where she grew up, and also what value of care means in an underserved region like East Austin.
Vences entered the health care profession, after all, because of her mother, a Mexican immigrant who long struggled to advocate for herself in doctor’s offices.
“Whenever I have a patient who needs to wait outside for his ride, I wait with them,” said Vences, who is bilingual, “because I like them knowing I will just wait with them. I want to create an unforgettable moment, and I want them to remember, ‘She was really nice.’”
Vences is among a host of recent graduates from the medical assistant apprenticeship program between Central Health and Austin Community College (ACC) that has provided registered certifications to 33 medical assistants since its inception in 2024. In May, the program graduated its fourth cohort.
How Does Central Health’s Medical Assistant Partnership Work?
The medical assistant (MA) program provides students—who are recruited from the communities Central Health serves—a way to enter the health care workforce.
For some, like 23-year-old Andrea Luna, it’s a lifeline to a better life. The mother of one, a U.S. resident who was born in Mexico, was a cashier, Amazon driver, and substitute teacher at Del Valle ISD before earning her medical assistant certification.
“It’s very meaningful,” said Luna, who will continue her work as an MA with Central Health on May 19, “because I feel like it’s the first great step that I’m taking.”
Once accepted into the program, students become full-time employees at Central Health, which secures a steady income with benefits and lessens the burden for students arriving from underserved communities. They also receive full tuition scholarship for the nine-week training at ACC before the final six weeks concludes with Central Health’s Capital Plaza Clinic, Rosewood-Zaragosa Specialty Care Clinic, and the East Austin Specialty Clinic.
While the full-time role does not continue past graduation, students can interview for full-time roles with Central Health or CommUnityCare Health Centers and continue their journeys as medical assistants.
Common responsibilities as an MA include taking vitals, assisting in examinations and providing guidance to patients.
For Vences, her impact was almost immediate.
“She really has a maturity that’s extremely impressive,” said Shylo Faulkner, a registered nurse who works in Central Health’s East Austin Specialty Clinic, where Vences is also staffed. “She’s so bright and positive and incredibly motivated. Since her internship, she’s kept that same momentum.”
Vences was born in Austin, grew up in Del Valle, and graduated from Del Valle High School. When she was younger, her mother María used to tell her, “Get an education, get a good job,” but Vences didn’t understand the significance of that advice until her graduation.
“She was the one who put it in my head a lot that you need to get an education so I wouldn’t have to struggle like we did,” Vences said, “but I really never put my mind to it, because I was young.”
Sometime in 2024, though—roughly a few months after her high school graduation — Vences’ older sister Cristina texted her about the MA apprenticeship program with Central Health.
“I was like, ‘OK, might as well give it a try,’ because I was already in search for something,” Vences said.
“When she presented that, I just clicked on it, and it got me here.”
Central Health Grows Its Provider Base
Central Health’s rapid expansion of its specialty care practice, with more a dozen new specialty care and diagnostic service lines in the past 18 months, has created its own immediate needs for Travis County’s hospital district to grow its own workforce.
“As we build the health care infrastructure our patients deserve, we know there are workforce challenges,” said Dr. Alan Schalscha, Central Health’s chief medical officer.
In developing the MA program, Dr. Schalscha said, “part of the goal was to provide the resources for those medical assistants to have funding to obtain their education.”
The partnership has been critical in building a stronger pipeline of medical professionals within the Central Health system, and it runs parallel to a nursing apprenticeship program which offers a similar model with ACC. More than 90% of graduates from the MA program in 2024 obtained a registered MA certification.
Importantly, Central Health and ACC are providing opportunities to residents from the shared populations they serve.
“Much of the time, we think of the 18-year-old that just graduated high school, and that student is an important constituent,” ACC Chancellor Dr. Russell Lowery-Hart said.
Developing a Career at Central Health
Vences is the perfect example of a student who has taken advantage of an opportunity in front of her.
During her MA training, Vences earned perfect attendance, not to mention the respect of her peers and teachers. It wasn’t a surprise when she was hired by Central Health afterward.
“I needed to show that I was here for it,” she said, “because I didn’t want this opportunity to be taken away from me.”
In May, Vences earned another certificate to become a community health worker (CHW), an occupation which will see her connecting directly with patients to solve issues surrounding social determinants of health.
“I didn’t realize how much they connect people to resources,” Vences said of CHWs.
In time, Vences wants to progress further. The big goal, she says, is to one day become a licensed nurse.
“The fact that she’s doing what she’s doing at her age, I see so much potential in her,” Faulkner said. “I think she would be a fantastic nurse.”
Some days, Vences said, her patients call her enfermera, which in Spanish means nurse. Vences says she often corrects them, “because I’m a medical assistant.”
But the patients, Vences said, “They say, ‘No, eres enfermera,’ because you’re out there helping people. After all of this, I’m like, ‘OK, maybe they’re manifesting this for me.’ I want to go back to ACC and go back to the nursing program they have.”
Vences often thinks of her mother when she’s working inside the East Austin Specialty Clinic. After all, it was her mother that gave her the inspiration to seek a better life.
“I need to do this,” she said. “This is my dream.”
The 2025 Medical Assistant cohort gathered on Friday, May 9, 2025, at Central Health’s Southeast Health & Wellness Center for its graduation. Nine medical assistants were handed their certifications after 15 weeks of training through an accelerated apprenticeship program between Austin Community College and Central Health. The medical assistants were Kaylea Villanueva, Aylana Villanueva, Lauren Vargas, Kaitlyn Rodriguez, Shavonica Powell, Andrea Luna, Larissa Posada, Alyssa Castro, and Abigail Beltran.
The summer 2025 cohort will begin in July.
