making the rounds

SPR I NG 202 3

No single person understood the value of our mission more than Ms. Erica Easton, the President of the Kern Medical Foundation, who tragical ly passed away this year. Her fortitude, perseverance, and resolve are engrained into our teaching programs. Her enthusiasm, support, and love for Kern Medical was on display every time you were in her presence. She championed for the growth and expansion of our residency and fel lowship programs. She identified, appl ied for, and received multiple grants to help support our teaching and scholarship mission, including funding for the Val ley Fever Institute and the subsequent Infectious Disease Fel lowship that fol lowed.

We have strengthened and further broadened our affi l iation with the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. We have entered into a partnership with Western University of Health Sciences that in turn led to the creation of new l inkage agreements between the medical school and Cal ifornia State University, Bakersfield and Bakersfield Col lege. These l inkage agreements are designed to create pathways for students in Bakersfield and Kern County to seek future careers in medicine. Final ly, our col laboration with Adventist Health has been designed to identify and recruit more special ists into the region with the hope of establ ishing new residency and fel lowship programs in the future. Such col laboration is magnified even further as we embark on applying for accreditation of a new General Surgery Residency Program later this year. Nearly 10 different participating sites and programs have been identified to help us matriculate the next generation of surgeons in Kern County. These efforts reinforce the mission of Kern Medical to del iver safe, compassionate, and high-qual ity care to our patients whi le providing a cl inical learning environment conducive to graduate medical education.

Erica worked di l igently to create pathways for young students to learn about the benefits of entering into the medical profession. Her dream of creating a “pipel ine” that would al low us to recruit and retain current students into the field of medicine is slowly becoming real ity with the aforementioned l inkage agreements. Her outstanding work in raising funds through the Foundation led to our new Pediatric Wing and expansion of our Labor and Del ivery services at Kern Medical .