This July, those 12 physicians will begin their residency through Kaweah Delta's two Graduate Medical Education Programs in family medicine and emergency medicine. Program directors told Action News the residents will get experience in all kinds of medical situations. "In the emergency department, we see over 80,000 patients a year. Nothing goes past us, nothing flies over us. We get everything from trauma, to sick kids, everything in between," said Dr. Lori Winston, the Associate Director of the Emergency Medicine Program.
On Monday, Kaweah Delta got word from the National Residency Matching Program that all 12 of its first spots had been filled. Later this week, program directors will learn the identities of those physicians. The hope is many of those doctors will stay in the area after their residencies are complete. "The primary care physicians in the community, the average age is 55. Of that group many will retire in the next five to 10 years and we don't have replacements online. One of the reasons we're here is to grow the next generation of primary care physicians for our part of the Valley," said Dr. Robert Allen, the Director of the Family Medicine Program.
