California to track, post doctors' race, languages spoken

Information collected and shared under a new law will help determine the number of physicians with cultural and linguistic competency.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. Oct. 23/30, 2006.

California has taken a step to tell patients which physicians speak their language and have the same ethnicity.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Sept. 29 signed a law requiring the Medical Board of California to compile data on cultural background and foreign language proficiency of physicians licensed in the state. Physicians are not required to tell the state those facts, but information that is collected will be reported annually on the board's Web site by statewide totals and ZIP code. That will let patients to see how many physicians speak Spanish, for example, in their community.

Eventually, the board wants to list the information under individual physician profiles on the site.

"It's trying to respond to the demographics in California, and we have so many patients who don't speak English," said California Assemblywoman Jenny Oropeza. "We can all agree that the better communication and the better the connection between the physician and the patient, the better the [experience]."

Most medical boards post physician profiles on their Web sites, typically listing data such as board certification, practice address and medical education. In their profiles, Texas and New York include language services available at a doctor's office for patients, according to the Federation of State Medical Boards. But California is unique in putting both cultural and language background on its medical board site, the FSMB said.