It’s a scene repeated far too often throughout California. Our state already faces a critical shortage of primary care physicians. And as California’s ethnic diversity continues to grow, so does the demand for physicians with the language skills and cultural affinities to meet patient needs.
Bridging the Doctor Gap
The UCLA International Medical Graduate (IMG) Program is the first and only one of its kind in the nation: a university-based pre-residency training program for U.S. citizens and permanent residents who received their medical educations from schools throughout Latin America, and who are fully fluent in both Spanish and English. Our program prepares these IMGs with an intensive, standardized course of professional instruction and clinical clerkships to pass the U.S. Medical Licensing Examinations (USMLE) and compete successfully for Family Medicine residency programs in California.
In return, our IMG scholars contractually agree that on completion of their Family Medicine residencies, they will serve for an additional 24-to-36 months in medically-underserved communities in California.
How does the UCLA IMG Program help meet California’s needs?
Our IMG Program produces:
- Critically needed primary care physicians in a timely and cost-efficient manner, quickly supplementing what is produced by the state’s eight allopathic medical schools;*
- Family Medicine practitioners who are committed to serving in California’s inner-urban and rural communities, where medical workforce needs are greatest, but where most medical school graduates do not practice;
- Physicians who are fully bilingual English/Spanish, with the cultural affinities to meet the medical care needs of California’s large, and largely underserved, Hispanic population with limited English proficiency.
*The eight include the medical schools at UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco, USC, Stanford University, and Loma Linda University; a ninth medical school, UC Riverside, admitted its first class in 2013.