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 |Add To My Favorites |Track Bill | Version: 04/09/26 - Amended Senate
 02/18/26 - Introduced

 SB-1179 Doctors from El Salvador Program.(2025-2026)

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 Date Published: 04/10/2026 04:00 AM

SB1179:v98#DOCUMENTBill Start

 Amended
 IN 
 Senate
 April 09, 2026

 CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
 2025–2026 REGULAR SESSION

 Senate Bill

No. 1179

Introduced by Senator Menjivar
(Coauthor: Assembly Member Alvarez)(Coauthor: Senator Durazo)
(Coauthors: Assembly Members Alvarez, Carrillo, Mark González, and Celeste Rodriguez)

February 18, 2026

 An act to add Article 6.5 (commencing with Section 2130) to Chapter 5 of Division 2 of the Business and Professions Code, relating to healing arts. 

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

SB 1179, as amended, Menjivar.
 Doctors from El Salvador Program.

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. require the program to be developed in consultation with representatives from a community health clinic in California that has an established partnership and framework with specified universities in El Salvador and would require the program to, among other things, recruit and vet candidates and assist candidates for the program in El Salvador to meet all program requirements. 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

 This bill would require a licensee in the program to only practice medicine in California at a federally qualified health center and any practice only in the nonprofit community health center that offered the licensee employment and the 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 require an evaluation of the program to be conducted 12 months after the program has commenced by one of specified universities in El Salvador and an unspecified medical school in southern California, except that if the evaluation does not begin within 18 months of commencement of the program, the bill would require the Director of Consumer Affairs to select an independent consultant to conduct the evaluation. The bill would require progress reports to be provided to the Legislature on achievable time intervals beginning in the 2nd year of implementation of the program. The bill would require
 the board to coordinate with the community health center, as specified, to ensure that the number of program participants that are issued a license does not exceed a certain number of licensees, based on the year in which the applicant applies. The bill would es