The New America Alliance Institute, a national organization that promotes philanthropy in the Latino community, announced today a $78,000 donation to the International Medical Graduates program at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

UCLA's program brings bilingual graduates of medical schools outside North America and Puerto Rico to the United States and helps them compete for primary care residency training positions in California teaching hospitals. The hope is that they will eventually work in the state's underserved Hispanic and other minority communities upon completion of their residency training. There are currently six International Medical Graduates, or IMGs, involved in UCLA's clinical observership portion of the program.

"California has 261 physicians per 100,000 population but only 30 Hispanic physicians per 100,000 Hispanics in the state, which leads to cultural misunderstandings and language barriers to care," said Dr. Patrick Dowling, chair of UCLA's family medicine department, which oversees the program. "More than one-third of the state's Hispanics now live in communities without adequate access to primary health care.

"This generous donation allows us to move forward with a unique program to prepare immigrant bilingual physicians already residing here to compete for residency training positions in family medicine in the state," Dowling said. "Once they are trained they will be obligated to practice in one of the state's many medically underserved communities. Because of their unique backgrounds they will be ideally suited to care for our immigrant population and they will help train all of us to better understand the unmet needs of this population."

The observership allows IMGs to work in conjunction with a UCLA physician. Although IMGs cannot examine a patient, they can take patient histories, observe physical exams and participate in arriving at diagnoses. In doing so, they better understand the U.S. approach to medical care. The program's goal is to assist them to be competitive in family medicine training in California.

New America Alliance members pledged the donation to the IMG program following a presentation by Dowling at the group's June 2006 Philanthropy and Human Capital Conference, which gathered top scholars in education, health care and immigration to discuss issues affecting Latinos in the United States.

"There is a severe shortage of physicians providing services to the American Latino population," said Regina Montoya, CEO of the New America Alliance. "Members of the New America Alliance were delighted to collaborate with UCLA and felt compelled to contribute to the IMG program because it is a tangible solution to address the gap. The Institute is proud to contribute to a program that will directly impact health care in the Latino community and the nation as a whole."

This is the second donation the IMG program has received. The first, a $100,000 donation, came from Long Beach, Calif.-based Molina Healthcare Inc. and Dr. J. Mario Molina, president and CEO of the company, in August 2006. That donation helped initiate the IMG program.

"We are very supportive of the International Medical Graduates program and Dr. Dowling's efforts to help medical students become doctors in the United States," Molina said. "The donation made today by the New American Alliance shows the commitment to providing solutions for the growing healthcare needs in underserved communities throughout the United States."

The New America Alliance Institute is a 501(c)(3) philanthropic organization that focuses on enhancing human capital, education and strategic philanthropy to promote the advancement of the Latino community and to improve the quality of life in the United States. The Institute's mission is to become the premier organization promoting strategic philanthropy in the Latino community and leveraging the significant resources of large charitable organizations to make a greater contribution to the Latino community. The Institute provides local knowledge of the issues and causes that affect Latinos and of organizations that are effectively addressing those issues and causes.

The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA ranks among the nation's elite medical schools, producing doctors and researchers whose contributions have led to major breakthroughs in health care. With more than 2,000 full-time faculty members, nearly 1,300 residents, more than 750 medical students and almost 400 Ph.D. candidates, the medical school is ranked seventh in the country in research funding from the National Institutes of Health and third in the United States in research dollars from all sources. 

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