By Robert Salonga
Daily Bruin Staff
After trailblazing through the Himalayas, treating birds,
delivering babies, studying at Harvard and professionally dealing
blackjack, UCLA emergency physician Keri Gardner now has her sights
set on the nation’s capital.
Gardner is a finalist for one of 12 spots in the yearlong White
House Fellows program, where she could work full-time as an
assistant to a Cabinet member or senior adviser to President Bush.
She is competing with 29 other finalists from across the
nation.
Typical work for fellows includes speechwriting, helping to
draft and review proposed legislation and answering congressional
inquiries.
President Bush will meet with the current class of fellows three
times and hopes to increase that number for Gardner’s class,
said program director Jocelyn White.
“The president has take a strong interest in the
program,” White said.
“He meets with (the fellows) for substantive 40-minute
meetings where they can ask him any question on any issue.
It’s a very open exchange,” she added.
The final interview sessions will be held in June, where Gardner
will fly to Washington, D.C., to speak before the President’s
Commission on White House Fellowships, headed by White.
She hopes to become U.S. Surgeon General one day so that she can
help shape health care policy nationwide.
“I’d like to see every American covered by health
care,” Gardner said.
Gardner’s storied journey to UCLA and possibly to the Oval
Office traces back to the mid-1980s when the San Rafael, Calif.,
native was a veterinary student at UC Davis.
After three years, she participated in the Education Abroad
Program and traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, to further pursue
veterinary studies. But upon her return to the United States, she
decided that she might give human medicine a shot.
“I worked at a raptor center with birds of prey,”
Gardner said. “They were always trying to peck at you, and I
was tired of always having my patients beat me up.”
She volunteered at the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento and
got “hooked” on treating people.
At this point her path to human medicine took a detour. After
graduating in May 1988 but before applying to medical school, she
served a stint as a blackjack dealer in Harrah’s Hotel and
Casino in Lake Tahoe.
“A lot of Davis students do it,” Gardner said of her
job.
She said the experience helped her shed her inhibitions and
shyness ““ which she said cost her the job the first two times
she applied ““ because the position entailed more than just
dealing cards.
“I really enjoy meeting people; everybody has a story and
it’s just a matter for finding it,” Gardner said.
While she was doling out cards and betting chips, she found some
time in between to apply to Harvard Medical School, and was
accepted. But she was not ready to dig into academia just yet.
Saying that she wanted to travel the world one more time before
going back to school, Gardner convinced Harvard to defer her
admission for one year while she saved money to traverse the globe.
She went to Hong Kong, Thailand, India and then to Nepal to trek
through the Himalayas.
After completing her studies at Harvard, Gardner took on an
internship at the University of Colorado where she worked as an
OB-GYN, delivering babies and performing gynecological surgery.
As a member of the National Public Health Service Corps ““
which landed her the Colorado job ““ she was called into
service on Indian reservations in South Dakota and Oklahoma. This
two-year experience sparked her interest in government and public
policy.
Though she has not ironed out the details, Gardner thinks a
single-payer health system and nonprofit, non-governmental system
would work best.
“Health care is expensive because it’s customer
service-driven,” Gardner said. “Society has to grapple
what basic care everyone’s entitled to.”
It was after this job that she applied to emergency medicine at
UCLA, where she is a fourth-year chief resident.
Gardner’s interest in health care public policy was
well-known among her colleagues, who encouraged her to apply for
the White House Fellows program so that she could establish the
knowledge and contacts to pursue her goals.
The application process humbled Gardner, who among other things
had to get up to speed on current events because of the time
demands of being chief resident.
“It was a very intimidating interview process,” she
said.
White said the first round of applications are reviewed by
program alumni in the applicant’s profession, in this case
medicine.
She said they look for how well each applicant meets four main
criteria: extraordinary achievement early in one’s career,
strong commitment to public service, leadership capabilities and
potential for further growth, and the skill to work at the highest
levels of the government.
After passing the first test, Gardner spoke before regional
panels consisting of leaders from throughout the Los Angeles
area.
If chosen, Gardner said she will miss practicing medicine
““ which she will not be able to do as a fellow ““ and
boyfriend Dr. Peter Tontonoz, who works in the pathology department
at the medical center. She will also leave behind for a year two
dogs: greyhound Oliver, and shepherd mix Siska, who volunteers at
the hospital to help comfort patients.