California plan to use Mexican physicians stalls

Lack of funding and of medical school oversight is blocking a pilot program designed to increase rural access. But efforts to license dentists are progressing.

By Myrle Croasdale, AMNews staff. June 30, 2003.

Physicians from Mexico won't be setting up practice in rural California this summer, despite a law passed last year allowing them to do just that.

The California Hispanic Health Care Assn. planned to have Mexican doctors in the United States by July 1, but they've been unable to find a medical school willing to oversee the program, as required by the law. It allows 30 physicians and 30 dentists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico to work in California at designated nonprofit clinics under a three-year, nonrenewable license.

The pilot's organizers have discovered that medical schools are reluctant to sign on without making significant changes to the program. In addition, without a medical school on board, landing the estimated $1 million to $1.5 million needed to administer the project has been almost impossible, they said.

"We're not getting any cooperation from the medical schools," said Arnoldo Torres, executive director of the California Hispanic Health Care Assn. "We're thinking of going back to the Legislature and asking them to remove the medical school [oversight] requirement."

Discussions have taken place with the University of Southern California, but USC officials want the project to be run through USC clinics. These clinics serve an uninsured, mostly Hispanic population in Los Angeles but not the rural workers the bill was intended to serve, Torres said.

If the pilot's supporters succeed at removing the medical school oversight component of the legislation, the cost of the program would drop to $300,000, Torres said. However, it's unlikely such a revision would make it to the Legislature unopposed.