Doctor image by Online Marketing on unsplash.com

Adventist Health Bakersfield is launching its first internal medicine physician residency program in Kern County. The program will welcome its inaugural cohort of four residents in June.

A resident physician is a doctor in training who has graduated from medical school and is continuing their health care education on the way to becoming a full doctor. They have already received their medical degree and are completing additional training in their specialty of choice.

Faculty are currently interviewing candidates from a field of thousands of applicants. The four residents in the first Bakersfield cohort will be notified in March as part of a national program, known as the “Match,” which uses a computerized mathematical algorithm to place graduate doctors into the most preferred residency programs that also prefer them, according to an Adventist Health news release.

Throughout their three years of residency, physician residents will rotate through various departments and specialties at Adventist Health Bakersfield, gaining comprehensive experience and expertise both in the hospital and the clinic setting. The Central Valley has just 39 primary care providers per 100,000 people, according to one University of California report. In comparison, the Bay Area has 64 primary care providers for every 100,000 people. With fewer options to access primary care, community members turn to the emergency room for common complaints like colds, coughs and ear infections.