William H. “Bill” Gibbs has rejoined the Emanuel Medical Center Board of Directors and Dr. Kathleen Kearns has been elected Chief of Staff.
Gibbs, a Turlock native, founded the W.H. Gibbs Maintenance Company, a janitorial contracting firm, when he was 18 and attending California State University, Stanislaus. He has been a strong supporter of Emanuel Medical Center, including a previous term on the hospital board in the 1980s and serving as chair of the hospital’s Legacy Circle annual giving campaign.
Gibbs has also been involved in many other community organizations. He served as president of the Turlock Chamber of Commerce and was recognized by the chamber as Turlock’s Citizen of the Year in 1996. He has been president of the CSUS Alumni Association and member of the CSUS Foundation Board of Trustees. He has been a Turlock Rotarian for over 30 years and has served as the club’s president. He is also a charter member of Cornerstone Covenant Church. He and his wife Cindy have two grown children, Chelsea and Tom.
Gibbs said he believes supporting the hospital is the best way to support the entire community.
“Giving to the hospital helps the most people,” he said. “You’re helping people you never see, helping the entire community. There’s a lot of great work that goes on there, a lot of healing.”
Emanuel’s Board of Directors also entered its new fiscal year on February 1 with changes in the medical staff officers. Dr. Kearns, who was Vice Chief of Medical Staff in 2011, was elected Emanuel’s Chief of Medical Staff; Dr. Ronald Arakelian joined the Board as Vice Chief of Medical Staff, and Dr. Huy Dao joins the board as the Secretary of Medical Staff.
As Chief of Staff, Dr. Kearns will be is responsible for presiding over Emanuel’s medical staff meetings, directing the Emanuel medical staff executive committee, serving as liaison between physicians and hospital administrators and interpreting hospital policies to the medical staff.
Dr. Kearns said her goals for the year are to help Emanuel stay on the positive trajectory it’s been on.
“The goal is to continue to improve the quality of care for our patients and community,” she said. “To continue to improve the overall smooth function of the hospital, including the medical staff interaction with administration.”
Dr. Kearns graduated from Yale in 1990 with a degree in anthropology, then attended medical school at U.C. San Francisco. She completed her family medicine residency training at Natividad Medical Center in Salinas and established her full-scope family medicine practice in Turlock in 2002.
To expand her skills toward teaching, Dr. Kearns completed a UCSF Faculty Development Fellowship in 2006. Her ongoing interest in residency and leadership led her at accept the role of Associate Program Director of the Valley Family Medicine Residency Program in 2009. She graduated from the Association of Family Medicine Residency Directors’ National Institute of Program Director Development in 2010. Dr. Kearns is a member of the American Academy of Family Physicians and the Society of Teachers in Family Medicine. She has served on Emanuel’s board since 2009.
The new board members also bring a wealth experience to their positions. Internist Dr. Arakelian received his medical degree from Creighton University in 1976 and completed his residency at the Mayo Graduate School of medicine in 1979. He then took a pulmonology fellowship at the University of Utah in 1980. Dr. Arakelian joined the Emanuel medical staff in 1981 and served as Chief of Staff in 1995-1996. He is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine.
Dr. Dao attended medical school at Midwestern University in Arizona and completed a general surgery residency at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. He implemented a bariatric program at Emanuel Medical Center in 2009, where he is also the Director of Bariatric Surgical Services. Dr. Dao specializes in advanced laparoscopic procedures for the gastrointestinal tract, bariatric procedures and hernias repairs. He is a member of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.
Emanuel Medical Center is a not-for-profit, community-based Christian hospital. Its 403-bed multi-level medical campus includes a 209-bed acute care hospital, a 145-bed skilled nursing facility and a 49-bed assisted living facility. It provides emergency, critical care, pediatric, cardiovascular services, cancer diagnosis and treatment, women’s health services, surgery, and hospice services.
For more information, to search for a doctor by specialty or location, or for an online symptom-checker, visit www.emanuelmedicalcenter.org.
