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."