Study Shows Shortage of Latino MDs in California

A UCLA study documents for the first time the shortage of Latino physicians in California, providing key evidence in a years-long battle to forge new policies that will draw more doctors to underserved minority communities.

The shortage presents a looming medical catastrophe for the state’s 10.4 million Latinos unless medical schools step up their recruitment of Latino physicians, who now make up 4.8% of the state’s 74,345 doctors, according to the study, scheduled for release Thursday by UCLA’s Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture.

Physicians who are Latino or African American--the latter group makes up an estimated 5% of the state’s doctors--are more likely to practice in medically underserved communities, medical school surveys have shown. The current trend in medical school enrollment points to a largely white and Asian physician class of the future, according to statistics in the report.

Underserved communities have doctor shortages similar to those in many Third World countries. The federal government defines such areas as neighborhoods having less than one physician for every 3,500 patients. Bell Gardens, for example, has one physician for every 28,000 residents.

The study’s authors argue that the shortage in California can be partly resolved by more aggressive minority recruiting by the state’s medical schools. Affirmative action programs at state medical schools ended in 1995.

Under current policies, “the question isn’t how bad will it get, but how quickly we get there,” said David Hayes-Bautista, the report’s lead author.

With overcrowded clinics and a thriving illegal pharmaceutical drug trade in such Southern California cities as Bell Gardens, Santa Ana and Inglewood, “we’re headed toward a pretty big disaster” if physician shortages continue to worsen during the next 10 years, he said.

Last fall, just 11% of the 569 new students enrolling in the University of California’s five medical schools were so-called underrepresented minorities--either African American, Latino or Native American, UC records showed.

That reflects a trend that began in 1993, prompting UC officials and officials from the state’s three private medical schools to form a task force in October to address the problem.

“We believe that expanding the number of underrepresented students trained by UC medical schools is one vital dimension of our efforts to improve access to care for medically underserved groups and communities in California,” said Dr. Cornelius Hopper, a UC vice president who is heading the task force.

Later this year, the group plans to recommend ways to encourage more students from underrepresented minorities to choose health science careers, as well as programs to better prepare them, Hopper said.

But many advocates say that, such steps, though laudable, will not produce significant results.

Dr. Robert Beltran, president of the California Latino Medical Assn. and a coauthor of the UCLA study, speculated that it would take 25 years to correct the shortage of Latino physicians.

“And that would mean pulling every non-Hispanic currently enrolled in medical school out and replacing them with Latino students,” he said.

According to the study, there is one Latino doctor for every 2,893 Latino residents in California. By contrast, there is one non-Latino doctor for every 335 non-Latino residents, the study showed. Parity in those ratios would require the licensing of about 27,000 new Latino physicians, according to the study.

Health activists believe that is a big reason for crowded health clinics in many of the state’s poor and Latino neighborhoods.

Some immigrant patients from Latin America complain that non-Spanish-speaking physicians are not “culturally competent” to deal with their particular maladies, said Hayes-Bautista, who co-edited a book last year on Latino health care.

He said the report is not intended to argue that only Latino physicians can or should treat Latino patients. But the numbers, he said, show a widening gap between the state’s growing Latino population and the shrinking number of Latino physicians being trained in California’s medical schools and hospitals.

The new study is likely to be cited by state lawmakers considering legislation that would make it easier for foreign medical graduates to practice in California.

“This problem is so deep, we need to focus on those kinds of solutions,” said Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh (D-Los Angeles), who favors the idea.