In a county that faces a shortage of physicians, here’s good news: four of the eight winners of this year’s Hispanic Chamber of Commerce scholarships are making plans to become physicians.

We attended the annual scholarship dinner on Saturday night and heard Dr. Ofelia R. Arellano, Dean of Instruction at the Petaluma Campus of Santa Rosa Junior College, deliver the keynote address. She warned of a “silent epidemic” in which too many Latino youngsters don’t feel the motivation to go to college.

Arellano described her own real-life story as a high school student in the Imperial Valley who would go on to earn a PhD. at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Role models matter, she said. “Educate one and you begin to educate an entire family.”

Note that three of the winners are members of the first freshman class at Roseland University Prep. With congratulations, here are all the winners:

– Roberto Castro, Roseland University Prep, attending UCLA in the fall.

– Adriana Orozco-Figueroa, Cloverdale High School, attending UC Davis in the fall.

– Cibelle Aparicio, Piner High School, attending UC Berkeley in the fall.

– Cecilia Alvarez, Cloverdale High School, attending UC Davis in the fall.

– Cristian Fertino, Roseland University Prep, attending UCLA in the fall.

– Fabian Gonzalez, a student at Sonoma State University.

– Joanna Martinez, Roseland University Prep, attending UC Berkeley in the fall.

– Nicole Tafoya, a student at Empire College.