Lake Arrowhead physician Ernest C. Levister Jr. has spent his career helping others heal. He has also focused on curing the Inland Empire healthcare system, which contends with two factors: an explosive population growth and an inadequate supply of primary and specialty care physicians.
In the Inland Empire – which has a population of more than 4.6 million – there are about 40 primary care physicians per 100,000 people, well short of the 60 to 80 recommended by the California Healthcare Foundation.
While Dr. Levister was attending a celebration for a major clinical expansion of UC Riverside Health, he was recognized by UC President Michael V. Drake for his efforts to increase access and improve healthcare for the Inland region.
“Dr. Levister has devoted years of his life to advocating for greater opportunity for students of all backgrounds who want to go to medical school,” Dr. Drake said.
Dr. Levister – now a retired physician and retired clinical professor of internal and occupational medicine at UC Irvine – co-founded the J.W. Vines Medical Society, which assists Black students seeking a healthcare career. The Society had found inequities and unfair admission and retention practices in the UC system.
In 1999 they took their cause to the California legislature, which called on UC Riverside “to radically restructure its biomedical education program or face severe funding cuts,” Levister recalls.
“I remember Dr. Levister as a community activist, testifying in Sacramento in the early 2000s in his quest to create more opportunities in medicine and to advance access to healthcare for communities in the Inland Empire,” Dr. Drake said in an online message to the 84,000 UC graduates of 2025. He called Dr. Levister “one voice among many.”
In June, the UC Riverside School of Medicine graduated its ninth class. Since its launch in 2013, the medical school has graduated 454 physicians, with 26 percent completing their residencies in the Inland Empire.
The expansion at UC Riverside Health has been called the “largest step by UCR Health toward a full healthcare footprint in the Inland Empire.” The complex will be anchored by a state-of-the-art teaching hospital and will supply doctors to the medically underserved areas of Riverside, San Bernardino and Imperial counties.
“This is truly a dream fulfilled,” said Dr. Drake, “the result of a community coming together around a common goal, then providing the energy and support to make it happen.
“Keep an eye out for people around you like Dr. Levister, who are working to create opportunities for students will will graduate 25 years from now.”
0 Comments