A new study from the University of California finds Latino and African Americans are under represented in the ranks of the state's doctors. The report comes from researchers at UC San Francisco. Reporter Kelley Weiss has the story.
Dr. Kevin Grumbach worked on the study and says the medical community knew minority doctors were underrepresented. But, he says he wasn't expecting such a huge gap.
Grumbach : We were actually shocked to find, by our calculations, only about 3,000 clinically active Latino physicians in the whole of California.
Grumbach says although Latinos make up about a third of California's population only five percent of doctors are Latino. African Americans make up about seven percent of the population but only three percent of physicians.
He says to address these disparities medical schools need to recruit more minority students. And he suggests loan repayment programs for doctors who work in underserved areas.
In Sacramento, I'm Kelley Weiss.
