Reporting

An estimated 297,000 children have a parent in a CA state prison or county jail. One former inmate vividly recalls the trauma of her then 5-year-old daughter witnessing one of her many arrests as the girl grabbed the officer's pants and cried, "Please don’t take my mommy away."

Kern's physicians come from many far-flung corners of the globe. Dr. Carlo Amazona originally from the Philippines shares how his experience growing up with no doctor made him becoming one.

Dr. Elyzabat Tadros shares her journey to become a doctor from her native Sudan to her current home in Bakersfield.

Kern's physicians come from many far-flung corners of the globe. This piece takes a look at several compelling personal journeys.

Crime experts try to determine what does and doesn’t work in changing the behavior of the formerly incarcerated.

Jesse Cottrell is a fourth-year medical student who decided to attend the American University of the Caribbean for a simple reason: "I couldn't get into a U.S. school."

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."

Kellie Schmitt reports on a Caribbean medical school that recently agreed to pay Kern Medical Center $35 million to have its students train at the cash-strapped county hospital. Some see this as one way to help solve the U.S. shortage of primary care physicians. Others worry because Caribbean medical schools don't receive the same accreditation as their U.S counterparts.

Journalist Kate Long explores West Virginia's epidemics of chronic disease and obesity and the efforts to reverse them.