A study of the physician workforce supply for the latino population in California.
OBJECTIVE
To determine the physician supply during two decades to the workforce available to California Latinos from two separate training tracks at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine (UCI)--the Fifth Pathway Program (FPP) and the traditional medical school curriculum.


METHODS
In 2002, the authors compared two groups of physicians practicing in California to ascertain the percentage of Latino patients in their practices. One group had completed the FPP (n = 229) during the period 1971-1991, and UCI graduates from the same period composed the second group (n = 960). The authors also examined Latino population statistics for California communities where physicians located their practices.


RESULTS
Both groups practiced in California (71.5%) and in primary care (59.9%) at the same rates. Women were underrepresented among FPP physicians (12.2% versus 33.3%). FPP physicians self-reported seeing significantly more Latino patients (14.3% versus 9.2%; P < .001). However, the groups did not significantly differ in the rates at which they practiced in communities with 40% or more Latino residents (18.1% versus 12.9%).


CONCLUSIONS
Reactivating the FPP may increase the raw number of physicians in California, but two decades of this program did not recruit physicians to practice in California's Latino community at a rate much above that for traditional medical school graduates, especially for communities having the highest Latino population densities.
Manetta
Alberto
A
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Internal Medicine, Division of Epidemiology, University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine, Irvine, California, USA. amanetta@uci.edu
Boker
John
J
Rea
Jose
J
Stephens
Frances
F
Koehring
Nancy
N
D002140:California; D002321:Career Choice; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003153:Community Health Services; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005260:Female; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010821:Physicians, Family / Q000193:education / Q000600:supply & distribution*; D011365:Professional Practice Location; D000078329:Workforce