UCLA International Medical Graduate (IMG) Program

Bilingual and Bicultural Family Physicians Meeting the Needs of Californa's Underserved Communities

2009-04-30T17:32:00.000-07:00

Are you an international medical graduate and a native Spanish-speaker from a predominately Spanish-speaking country who would like to obtain a California medical license? The UCLA IMG program will prepare you to become a board certified California family physician through this unique pre-residency training program. We are looking for physicians who are committed to train in a rural or urban California Family Medicine residency training program and will serve 18 to 36 months after residency training in an underserved community, providing care to those immigrants and low-income patients who face financial and language barriers to care. The service to the community after residency is a requirement for participation in the UCLA IMG Program.

This UCLA program provides tools and resources that will help you to successfully complete the journey required to become a U.S. licensed physician. As a first step, WE MOST STRONGLY advise that you do not take any of the United States Medical Licensing Examinations (USMLEs) without first achieving a minimum score of 500 on a National Board of Medical Examination test.

The UCLA IMG program provides educational stipends which help offset the cost of participating in this full-time program. During all phases of the program, neither part-time or full-time employment is possible as you will need to commit to a minimum of 50 hours per week to achieving your goal of becoming a U.S. licensed physician. If this is of interest to you and you can meet the 50 hour/ week requirement please read on.

New for ERAS 2009

2008-07-01T06:51:00.000-07:00

The process to get into a medical specialty in the US have started. The first thing to do is to pay your token. "International medical students/graduates, including Fifth Pathway participants, planning to participate in ERAS 2009 must read these important announcements. ERAS 2009 Tokens can be requested via ECFMG’s OASIS beginning on Tuesday, July 1, 2008".[learn more]

Our Goal

2008-06-29T06:28:00.000-07:00

This program seeks to provide bilingual English/Spanish International Medical Graduates (IMGs), who are committed to the care of our state's underserved populations, with a comprehensive program to pass the U.S. Medical Licensing Examinations (USMLE) and compete for Family Medicine Residency program positions in California. The paramount objective of the UCLA IMG Program is to place these well-trained family physicians in our state's rural and urban underserved communities.[learn more]

Program Rationale

2008-06-27T06:16:00.001-07:00

In California, Hispanics represent 32% of the population yet only 4% of the physician workforce. Further, almost 35% of California's Hispanics reside in medically underserved areas (MUAs) compared to 20% of the total population. To supplement the outreach and pipeline efforts by UCLA and the other California medical schools to train more Hispanic and English/Spanish bilingual physicians, the UCLA Department of Family Medicine (DFM) developed an innovative program to address the state's changing demographics and impending physician shortage. [learn more]

Who we are

2008-06-26T07:11:00.001-07:00

The UCLA IMG program is funded solely by private sources including the Molina Family Foundation, the New America Alliance, the California Endowment and UniHealth Foundation. This program is not funded by the State of California. [ learn more ]

Welcome

2008-06-24T06:45:00.000-07:00

The goal of the UCLA IMG program is to provide bilingual (English-Spanish) family physicians for our state's underserved rural and urban communities which include large Hispanic and other vulnerable populations.[ learn more ]