Self-reported fluency in non-english languages among physicians practicing in California

With increasing numbers of people with limited English proficiency in the United States, there is growing concern about the potential adverse effect of language barriers on patient care. We sought to compare the non-English language fluency of practicing physicians by physician race/ethnicity and location of medical school education.

We used cross-sectional analyses of California Medical Board Survey (2007) data of 61,138 practicing physicians. Measures examined were self-reported physician language fluency in 34 languages, race/ethnicity, and medical school of graduation.

Forty-two percent of physicians reported having fluency in at least one language other than English. Fifty-six percent of international medical graduates (IMGs) reported fluency in a language other than English, compared to 37% of US medical graduates (USMG). Although the majority of physicians with fluency in Spanish are not Latino, fluency in Asian languages is primarily restricted to physicians who are of Asian race/ethnicity. Eighty-seven percent of physicians with fluency in Mandarin, Cantonese, or other Chinese languages are of Chinese ethnicity. A similar association between ethnicity and fluency was found for Southeast Asian languages, Pacific Island languages, and South Asian languages. IMGs constituted more than 80% of the physicians with fluency in Arabic, South Asian, and Pacific Islander languages.

IMGs contribute to the diversity of languages spoken by California physicians.