Doctors Pursue Goal of Public Service : VENTURA

In pursuit of their goal of practicing family medicine together, doctors Leslie and Michael Stone have juggled caring for their three children with 110-hour weekly shifts at Ventura County Medical Center.

Rather than setting up a cozy private practice, the Ventura couple intend to treat patients of lesser means, such as the homeless and migrant workers, for whom health care is often elusive.

“We work well together,” said Leslie Stone, 32, who last week moved one step closer to their goal.

Leslie Stone and 10 other physicians received their completion certificates Wednesday evening at a graduation ceremony for the Ventura County Medical Center’s Family Practice Residency Program. Michael Stone, 34, who graduated from the same program last year, will be recognized for his one-year stint as a family practice academic fellow.

The program, affiliated with the UCLA School of Medicine, has been providing training for family physicians since 1969. Residents rotate through various disciplines including pediatrics, emergency, obstetrics, gynecology, surgery, internal medicine, dermatology and oncology.

“There are no other residents here so we cover all specialty services, and the breadth of hands-on education is really good,” Michael Stone said, adding that they are trained to treat patients “from conception to the grave.”

The Stones’ goal of public service is not unusual for graduates of the three-year program. About half of the class of ’91 will join public clinics. Overseas work draws many, and past graduates are employed in Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan and Micronesia.

Graduating resident physician Neil Saley plans to practice medicine in rural Oregon. There, he said, he will “do a lot of things I was trained to do here, like obstetrics and surgery.”

“In areas like Los Angeles, there are a lot of specialists and they feel you’re invading their territory” when others practice in their fields, he said.

The Stones worked abroad one summer in Thailand, where they performed “daylight surgery surrounded by jungles and monkeys,” Michael Stone said. “We used rain barrel water to wash our hands,” Michael said.

The couple plan to remain in Ventura for at least two more years. Leslie Stone will be a resident fellow in obstetrics in the coming year, while her husband will practice at a county medical clinic in Santa Paula.