Kern Medical Center, a 222-bed hospital in Bakersfield, Calif., is partnering with the USC Neurorestoration Center — part of Los Angeles-based Keck School of Medicine of USC — to create an epilepsy center in Bakersfield, according to Bakersfield.com.
The center, scheduled to open next month, will be one of the first comprehensive epilepsy centers in the area, according to the report. Patients in need of such services previously had to travel to Los Angeles or Sacramento, Calif., to receive care.
"Many epileptic patients can't work, so they have limited resources. Many depend upon caregivers, so making a journey of more than 100 miles can be an undue hardship for them," said Joseph Cheng-Thai Chen, MD, chief of neurosurgery at Kern Medical Center and adjunct associate clinical professor of neurosurgery at the Keck School of Medicine.