Existing law, the Medical Practice Act, establishes the Medical Board of California to license and regulate the practice of medicine. Existing law establishes within the act the Licensed Physicians from Mexico Program, which authorizes the board to issue a limited number of nonrenewable 3-year physician’s and surgeon’s licenses to physicians from Mexico who are licensed, certified, or recertified and in good standing in their medical specialty in Mexico and who meet specified other requirements.

This bill would establish the Doctors from El Salvador Program for the purpose of permitting licensed physicians from El Salvador to practice medicine in California for up to 3 years. The bill would establish a program administration committee and would designate Clínica Monseñor Oscar A. Romero to serve as the primary administrator and lead representative of the committee. The bill would require the committee to, among other things, develop an interview examination for each specialty area, develop an orientation program, and recruit and vet candidates for the program. The bill would require the board to issue a nonrenewable 3-year physician and surgeon’s license to a person who is licensed, certified, or recertified, and in good standing in the applicable medical specialty in El Salvador and who meets other requirements of the program. The bill would require a licensee in the program to only practice medicine in California at a federally qualified health center and any corresponding hospital. The bill would require a federally qualified health center employing a licensee in the program to take certain actions, including creating and maintaining medical quality assurance protocols for those licensees. The bill would also require the federally qualified health centers to work with a California medical school or residency program to conduct 10 secondary reviews of randomly selected patient encounters with each of those licensees every 6 months, as specified. The bill would also require the faculty from the medical school or residency program and federally qualified health center chief medical officers to jointly develop 2 quality assurance seminars to be attended by the licensees.

This bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute.