In the 1950’s, the San Luis Obispo (SLO) medical community was divided into three “camps”, the French Clinic, the San Luis Clinic, and the independent physicians. Most physicians were on the staff of the SLO General Hospital. In those days, the General Hospital’s emergency room coverage was rotated through the active staff and the stipend for being on call was a flat fee. Dr. Edwin French came up with the idea of having each physician donate that payment to create SLOMERF, a foundation for the purpose of underwriting medical education and research. The original Board had representation from across the community with French Clinic doctors, San Luis Clinic doctors and one independent internist, Dr. A.M. Wolfe (Dr. Tony Wolfe’s father).

Between 1950 and 1980, SLOMERF funds were used to bring in speakers on various medical topics of interest to physicians and nurses; a number of high quality speakers helped physicians and other healthcare professionals earn their CME credits locally.

In the 1980’s, the SLOMERF Board was reconstituted to achieve the balanced medical representation of the original Board. Dr. David Bernhardt replaced his partner, Dr. Treadwell, an independent. Drs. Jim Tedford and Steve Hansen were elected, followed soon after by Drs. Pat Vaughan and Jim Hannah. Hospitals had full-time ER docs by then, so in the 1980’s and 1990’s, SLOMERF was funded by a solicitation for voluntary donations which was included in the annual membership bill for the SLO Medical Society. In those days, most of us were able to get a significant number of CME credits from local programs. We had a California Medical Association accredited consortium which was empowered to certify CME programs, making them eligible for category 1 credit. The consortium sent out an annual report to each physician listing the number of category 1 hours they had attended locally, which we could send in with our relicensing application. The consortium’s costs as well as speakers’ honoraria were paid from SLOMERF funds.

If you fast forward to the early 21st century, the CME scene and the medical community changed radically. The Medical Board of California tightened requirements and more physicians started getting their CME online or at national meetings. Attendance at local CME programs fell off and eventually fewer and fewer programs occurred.

SLOMERF continued to seek voluntary donations, but with the decline in SLO Medical Society membership along with the changed environment for CME, donations dwindled. Local doctors did not know anything about SLOMERF, so convincing them to donate because difficult.

Ironically, in 2020 SLOMERF had more money than ever before. In 2013, Dr. Tony Reese gave the proceeds of an annuity worth about $20,000 to the foundation, and market gains between $75,000 and $80,000 left SLOMERF with more than $200,000 in 2020.

In 2020-2021, a push was made by the SLOMERF Board members, Drs. David Berhardt, Steve Hansen, Jim Redford, Pat Vaughn and Jim Hannah to recruit a new, balanced, younger generation of local physicians to the SLOMERF Board. Since 2021, SLOMERF has been actively meeting on a quarterly basis and looking for ways to fund local educational and research projects per our original Charter.