Looks like Affirmative Action is alive and well in CA!!! It sounds like we are recruiting for the Peace Corps, rather than the best and the brightest physicians from the top schools. I'm only interested in their scholastic record and the schools they graduated from....and, oh yes...Americans only!


Diversity gap found among state's doctors
By Dorsey Griffith - dgriffith@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, April 3, 2008


Eddie Cruz graduates from the UC Davis School of Medicine in June and soon will head to Oakland for training to become a pediatrician.

The San Francisco native is a young doctor coveted for his Central American heritage, Spanish fluency and desire to work with poor and otherwise disadvantaged children.

And he is a rare commodity.

Latinos make up nearly a third of the state's population but only 5 percent of California's physician work force.

The stark statistic is part of the most comprehensive and accurate study yet, which was released Wednesday and highlights gaps between the state's diverse population and its physician work force.

The disparities, some argue, threaten an already fragile and uneven system of care for underserved minority communities who tend to have a harder time getting access to care and whose health problems often are more severe when they do.

The data, presented at the UC Davis School of Medicine, were part of a report by the University of California, San Francisco, Center for California Health Workforce Studies.

"It's not just a civil rights issue, but a public health issue," said Dr. Kevin Grumbach, director of the UCSF center. "Research shows clearly that having more minority physicians improves access to care for the U.S. population, because they are more likely to take care of patients who have no insurance or who are covered by Medi-Cal."

The study also found that while nearly 7 percent of the state's population is African American, only 3 percent of the state's doctors are.

And while Asians are overrepresented in medicine – making up 26 percent of the state's doctors but just 11 percent of the population – clear disparities remain for some Asian groups, including Samoans, Hmong/Laotians, and Cambodians.

The report used California Medical Board statistics from nearly 62,000 active, licensed physicians practicing in the state.

Dr. Claire Pomeroy, dean of the UC Davis School of Medicine, argued that until the medical work force is more representative, health disparities along racial and ethnic lines will mount.

She cited well-documented differences in medical outcomes for minority patients with diabetes, heart disease and asthma as reasons to recruit and train more minority medical students.

"Medicine is not just technical skills, but connections between doctors and patients," she said. "Those connections are made by having a diverse work force."

Training more minority doctors is critical to gaining insight into medical conditions specific to those groups, added Dr. Jesse Joad, a UC Davis pediatric lung specialist.

She gave the example of sickle cell anemia, which mostly affects African Americans.

"There are probably a lot of interventions we could be doing in children that would limit what happens to their lungs as adults," said Joad, who is white. "But we don't ask the right questions. We just don't see it."

The UCSF study also found that minority doctors are more inclined than their white counterparts to choose primary care fields such as pediatrics, internal or family medicine, and to practice in low-income, inner-city or rural communities.

Cruz said he was drawn to pediatrics, even though it is not the most lucrative medical specialty, because it affords a lot of interaction with patients and parents.

"You have a lot of leeway and space to go into the community and do advocacy for your patients," he said. "I don't need to make a lot of money if I can make a big difference. That's more important to me."

But obstacles to creating a diverse medical work force exist throughout the educational pipeline, experts said.

"I think there are a lot of Latino kids who want to go into medicine," said Dr. José Arévalo, a family practice doctor who works at three Yolo County clinics and is president of the Sacramento Latino Medical Association. "But people don't see themselves as being able to do it."

A lack of role models contributes to the problem, said Arévalo. Growing up a Mexican American in San Antonio, he said the local medical professional was a pharmacist, and a lot of the treatments consisted of home remedies and herbs prepared by his grandmother.

Cruz, 32, is his family's first college graduate. "I didn't have a lot of support or mentors," he said.

Unlike many students who hope to become a doctor, Cruz said he didn't get top grades in college and failed repeatedly on qualifying medical school exams before becoming prepared for the rigors of a medical education.
Dr. Richard Pan, a Chinese American pediatrician, points out that while the numbers show Asians are generally overrepresented in California medicine, they collectively are very diverse group, with vastly different cultures and languages.

"It's important to recognize that someone who is Vietnamese or Hmong doesn't view a Chinese physician as someone they can instantly identify with," he said.

The report called for investments in the education pipeline to help prepare minority and disadvantaged students for medical careers and for increasing incentives for doctors to work in underserved communities.

About the writer:
Call The Bee's Dorsey Griffith, (916) 321-1089.

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/833209.html