title: Exploratory study on the international medical graduate-patient relationship: patient's perceptions of the quality of care delivered by his or her non-native doctor.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study examined the influence of social distance upon the patients' perceptions of the quality of care delivered by their non-native international medical graduates (NNIMGs) in an inner-city primary care residency program. Within the inner city, there is a growing trend of NNIMGs providing health care services, thereby creating a situation of maximal social distance with respect to nativity, race, and socioeconomic status.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two female NNIMG residents, one from India and one from China, were the focus of ten hour-long in-depth interviews with patients who participated in this exploratory qualitative research.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Structural supports, communication processes, and status equalization effects emerged as three self-reported influences on the assessment of care that were particular to their physician's NNIMG status. The physician's NNIMG status seemed to exert a status equalization effect that reduced social distance and subsequently increased the perception of the quality of care.
authors: Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, State University of New York Institute of Technology at Utica, New York 13502, USA. flrw@sunyit.edu
authors: Linda R
authors: LR
authors: Weber
authors: Kevin B
authors: KB
authors: Mathews
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005550:Foreign Medical Graduates; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011320:Primary Health Care; D036301:Qualitative Research; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D014505:Urban Population