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Kellie Schmitt
Affordable Care Act Blogger, Freelance Health Reporter
Affordable Care Act Blogger, Freelance Health Reporter
I write for the Center for Health Journalism's Remaking Health Care blog. Previously, I was a health reporter for the Bakersfield Californian, a staff writer for the San Jose Mercury News, and a business reporter for the San Francisco Recorder. I spent two years reporting from China for publications including The Economist's Business China, China Economic Review, and CNN Travel.
In 2012, I was a Health Journalism Fellow. My project examined the high number of foreign-trained doctors in California's Central Valley, a series which won awards from the Association of Healthcare Journalists and the California Newspaper Publishers Association.
I also worked with the Center for Health Journalism's multi-part, collaborative series on the devastating toll Valley Fever has had on California's Central Valley.
<p>It's no surprise that the Central Valley is a medically underserved community, where recruiting doctors is a tough task. Many of the doctors working here have attended medical school overseas. In fact, if you crunch the numbers, Kern County comes in fourth among California's 58 counties for having the most foreign-trained doctors.</p>