Latino physician supply in California: Sources, locations, and projections

Purpose. To determine the number of Latino physicians in California, identi fy the schools and countries where they were educated, determine the percen tage located in Latino areas, and project the supply of Latino physicians t o 2020. Method. From a 1999 list of 74,345 licensed physicians, the authors identif ied Latino U.S. medical graduates (USMGs) by "heavily Hispanic" surnames an d Latino international medical graduates (IMGs) by country and school of gr aduation. The 1999 license addresses of all physicians in Los Angeles Count y were analyzed against 1998 Latino-population data by zip code. A baseline projection of the supply of Latino physicians was based on the ten-year (1 986 to 1995) average annual production of Latino physicians educated in Cal ifornia, out of state, and in Latin America. A worst-case projection assume d the continuation of recent trends: a 32% decrease in California-educated Latino USMGs, a 19% decrease in out-of-state Latino USMGs, and a reduction of Latino IMGs to five per year. Results. In 1999, 3,578 Latino physicians comprised 4.8% of all Californian physicians. In contrast, Latinos made up 30.4% of the state's population. Latino physicians were more likely than non-Latinos to have addresses in a heavily Latino zip code. In the baseline projection, while the overall supp ly of Latino physicians will increase by nearly 30% by 2020, that growth wi ll be dwarfed by the 74% growth in the Latino population over the same time . In the worst-case projection, the actual number of Latino physicians will decrease from the 1999 figure of 3,578 to 3,448 by 2020, while the Latino population continues to grow. Conclusions. (1) The Latino USMG supply must be markedly increased in the n umber of first-year matriculants in both California and out-of-state school s. (2) The issue of Latino IMGs requires special attention, and may provide a temporary solution to the Latino physician shortfall. (3) Non-Latino phy sicians need to be prepared to be culturally effective with a large and gro wing Latino patient population.