As more international medical graduates enter primary care, they may offer a solution to some of the problems encountered by an increasing population of racial and ethnic minorities in the United States.
A review of the 2005 National Resident Matching Program results (PDF file: 10 pages / 287 KB. More about PDFs.), which was published in the September issue of Family Medicine, shows increasing diversity.
The analysis, "Results of the 2005 National Resident Matching Program: Family Medicine," said that of IMGs who matched in primary care specialties, 838 chose family medicine, 1,985 chose internal medicine and 377 opted for pediatrics. Family medicine ranked seventh in the percentage of IMG graduates among the 24 major specialties of medicine. Among the 15 subspecialties of internal medicine, family medicine ranked 13th in the percentage of IMGs.
"We provided these data in this year's match article because we wanted to provide more details about international medical graduates in family medicine and how family medicine compares with other specialties," said Perry Pugno, M.D., M.P.H., director of the AAFP Division of Education.
The trend may prove important as the proportion of U.S residents who have emigrated from other countries grows. Currently, 12 percent of American residents were born in other countries, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2004 Community Survey. In 15 states, more than 10 percent of residents are foreign-born.
Of the total number of people born abroad, 42 percent come from Spanish-speaking countries; other large immigrant populations were born in China, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Russia, Vietnam and the United Kingdom.
The Association of American Medical Colleges' FindAResident data show that, in 2002-2003, most international residency applicants came from India, Pakistan, China, the Philippines, Egypt, Dominica and Nigeria.
The diversity deduced from that and the 2005 Match data could have an effect on American health care. Unequal health care and poor outcomes have plagued ethnic and racial minorities, and part of the problem is lack of physicians who share their patients' cultural background, said the Institute of Medicine in its 2003 report, Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care.
"The majority of studies find … that racial and ethnic disparities remain even after adjustment for socioeconomic differences and other health care access-related factors," the report summary says.
That could change, the report continued, with a more diverse health care workforce.
"The health care workforce and its ability to deliver care for racial and ethnic minorities can be improved substantially by increasing the proportion of underrepresented U.S. racial and ethnic minorities among health professionals," the report says.
