Healing arts: medical school graduates: postgraduate training license.

Existing law requires a graduate of an approved medical school who is enrolled in a postgraduate training program to obtain a postgraduate training license. Existing law permits a physician and surgeon postgraduate training licensee to engage in the practice of medicine only in connection with their duties as an intern or resident physician in a board-approved program, as specified, including diagnosing and treating patients, prescribing medications, and signing birth and death certificates. Existing law requires an applicant for a physician's and surgeon's license to successfully complete 36 months of board-approved postgraduate training in order to be issued a physician's and surgeon's license. This bill would reduce the required months of board-approved postgraduate training required to be issued a physician's and surgeon's license to 12 months for graduates of medical schools in the United States and Canada or 24 months for graduates of foreign medical schools other than Canadian medical schools, and make conforming changes. Existing law requires a program director for an approved postgraduate training program in California to report to the board, as specified, certain actions within 30 days of the action, including, among others, when a postgraduate trainee takes a leave of absence or any break from their postgraduate training, and they are notified that their postgraduate training period is extended. This bill would require that the program director also specify in the report that the program director had made a determination that the extension was necessary. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.