Kellie Schmitt

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.   

Articles

Importing Doctors: Concerns about the quality of Caribbean schools persist

Concerns about the quality of Caribbean-educated students aren't completely unsubstantiated. A 2010 study published in Health Affairs examined mortality rates of nearly 250,000 hospitalizations. The patients of foreign-born international medical graduates had the lowest patient death rates while U.S. citizens who study abroad had the highest rates -- a difference authors called "striking."

Central Valley's Doctor Shortages

<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>