Doctors not nearly as diverse as the valley

Southeast Asians and Latinos underserved

By BARBARA ANDERSON
kcarlson@modbee.com

E-Mail

Comments (0)

Text Size:

tool goes here

A huge gap exists between the minority populations in California and the number of doctors of diverse backgrounds, particularly Latino and Southeast Asian doctors in the San Joaquin Valley, according to a report made public Wednesday.

Results of a California Medical Board Survey found just 3,282 Latino doctors are practicing medicine in the state and only 90 in the state are of Lao, Cambodian, Hmong or Samoan background. There are about 61,800 doctors with practices in California.

Researchers were shocked by those results, said Dr. Kevin Grumbach, director of the Center for California Health Workforce Studies at the University of California at San Francisco and principal author of the study.

PDF: Doctor's Race

"The problem is even worse than we thought," Grumbach said during a teleconference at the University of California at Davis School of Medicine.

When physicians share a language and culture with patients, they can communicate better and provide better medical care.

The survey, which used ethnic information collected from doctors when they renew medical licenses every two years in California, also shows a stark disparity between the Latino doctor work force in the valley and the patients they treat.

Only 5.2 percent of doctors statewide are Latino; in the survey region that includes the valley, only 8.1 percent of doctors are Latino.

But Latinos represent 38 percent of the population in Stanislaus County, 36 percent in San Joaquin County and more than 50 percent in Merced County, according to the U.S. Census Bureau 2006 American Community Survey.

Large numbers of Cambodians, Hmong and Vietnamese live in the valley.

Making a healthier community

There's no question the valley needs to increase the number of minority doctors, said Bertha Dominguez, education director for the UCSF-Latino Center for Medical Education and Research.

To do so would benefit the entire population, not just minorities, she said. "Overall, it will make us a healthier community."

The Scenic Faculty Medical Group has 26 doctors serving patients in the Stanislaus County Health Services Agency clinics, which provide health care to low-income and uninsured patients. The clinics have three Latino doctors, and eight other doctors have learned Spanish to try to bridge the language gap, the group said.

But there is only one Cambodian physician to focus on the county's Southeast Asian community.

"Most Southeast Asian people in the county don't have a doctor who speaks their language or understands their culture," said Marge Leopold, site coordinator for The Bridge, a Southeast Asian community organization in Modesto.

Because of the language barrier, Hmong and Cambodian patients with English-speaking physicians have limited understanding of their prescription medication. Some of the Cambodians are survivors of the Khmer Rouge genocide in the late 1970s, Leopold said.

"A lot of Southeast Asians are put on antidepressants because of the trauma they have experienced," she said. "After they have been on antidepressants, they have had side effects they don't understand because they didn't comprehend what the doctors told them."

Residency program recruiting

Peter Broderick, director of the Stanislaus Family Medicine Residency Program, said it's tougher for Latinos and Southeast Asians to get into medical school. Many grew up in poor or rural communities without access to good schools.

The county's residency program prides itself in giving culturally competent training to the 27 residents in the three-year program. Right now, it has four Latino residents and two who are Hmong, and it's always looking for Southeast Asian residents to recruit, Broderick said.