First few Article Sentences
California’s underserved population faces not only the issues of accessibility and affordability, but also, for many Hispanic populations, a language barrier. “The bilingual physician shortage is very real and with so many monolingual Spanish-speaking patients, that’s a big barrier to care,” asserts Dr. Michelle Anne Bholat, who serves as the Co-Director of the UCLA International Medical Graduate Program (IMG), in addition to her responsibilities as Vice Chair, Clinical Affairs in the UCLA Department of Family Medicine. “Through the IMG program, we want to address the gap between what the current physician workforce looks like and what we need in California.”