Who we are

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.

Our Goal

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.

Program Rationale

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.

This program seeks to provide bilingual English/Spanish 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.