Making the Rounds

interact with our patients. In similar fashion, medical education has transitioned to a hybrid setting, with teleconferences and high fidelity simulations. Indeed, this inflection point in our history has changed our entire clinical learning environment. Kern Medical was not immune to these changes brought on by the pandemic. In the past 2 years, our faculty, fellows, residents, medical students, and nurses have endured one surge after another. Though each surge brought new challenges and hardships, our workforce was ready and capable to provide the life-saving critical care that these patients demanded. Yet, as the pandemic wore on, we identified mounting anxiety, fatigue, and burnout in our workforce. As physicians, we are taught to uphold the science and ethics of our profession at all times while considering the welfare of our patients first. Yet, the pandemic has created a new inflection point in our field; we must uphold the health and well-being of our caregivers as well. Leaders in our four residency programs and three

fellowships at Kern Medical were tasked to ensure the well-being of our faculty and learners. Specific programs and interventions were created to promote and ensure the mental and physical well being of our residents and fellows, not to mention our faculty as well. Throughout this ordeal, the sense of unity and fellowship among our trainees only grew as the pandemic wore on. I am proud to state that Kern Medical and our community is stronger today, unified in our purpose to serve the most underserved and vulnerable in our community. To fulfill our mission, Kern Medical again welcomed a new class of first-year residents into our sponsored programs in July of last year. At least a quarter of these residents were our former medical students, with several originating from the Central Valley. Throughout the academic year, we continued to recruit new physicians into our programs, serving as teaching faculty and providing subspecialized care and treatments previously not available in our community.

As the number of patients being seen in our clinics, evaluated in our emergency room, and admitted to our inpatient services have grown, so have the resident complements in our sponsored programs. This past year, we added an additional two residents into our Internal Medicine Residency Program and are on the verge of adding additional residents to our Psychiatry and Emergency Medicine programs, and additional fellows to our Child and Adolescent Fellowship. This upcoming year, we will begin the application process for our Surgery Residency Program with our newly named program director and alumnus, Dr. Amber Jones. As medical education continues to incorporate hybrid models of learning and teaching, our Simulation Center, under the directorship of Dr. Sage Wexner, continues to be a key pedagogical component. Each of our residencies now participate in simulation with specific curriculum designed to enhance the medical knowledge and procedural skills of our residents. We have also introduced simulation modules specifically designed for our medical student cohorts completing their clinical clerkships at Kern Medical. Indeed, we are proud to announce that we will Kern Medical faculty, residents and medical students in attendance at the AFMR Western Medical Research Conference.

“ We must uphold the health and well-being of our caregivers. ”

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