The Influx of Foreign Medical Students Is Distinguished in Cuban Daily Life For many years, the polychromy of Cubans has been enhanced by the presence here of foreign students, mainly of Medical Sciences, joining each brand-new school year. With the same rights and duties as Cubans have, thousands of young people from over 100 hundred countries are currently attending local Universities of Medical Sciences. They wear the same uniforms Cubans wear of dark blue pants or skirts and white coats and when they advance their studies they go with their stethoscope around their neck, full of books and notebooks toward hospitals where they perform teaching practices. Foreign students of Medical Sciences, whose number exceeds 10 000, have facilities to learn Spanish and receive remedial courses to enable their admission to the faculties. The training is rigorous by their teachers in classrooms, labs or at the foot of the bed of a patient, as it is with local students. This is ensured by a faculty staff of more than 36 000 professors who teach Cuban and foreign students in the network of universities of Medical Sciences in all provinces. High scientific and technical level, skills for dealing with patients and hospital staff, sensitivity and commitment, are the attributes of students from other countries when they finish the specialty of Medicine. Directors of public health and teaching insist that the challenge is to train a professional who is everyday more qualified for Cuba and the world. 14th in the world according to the Education for All Development Index, Cuba puts at the service of other peoples its experience in teaching and medical practice as well as its services in Medical Community Doctor along with the General Integral Medicine specialty. Thus, over 35 thousand young people from 129 countries have been graduated from Cuban universities from 1961 to 2011, and none of them remained here beyond the scheduled time. Cuba does not spare any effort in giving its human resources to the impoverished South and to teach the new graduates the need to serve the poorest and most remote communities in their countries. On this topic, a very ennobling experience was lived on the occasion of the recent earthquake in Haiti, when dozens of foreign students from the last years in Cuban classrooms went to the troubled country to help doctors of the José Martí’s homeland. Having that experience was decisive for the students, who narrated their experiences in the mission in Haiti and the wealth of knowledge received from Cuban doctors. Young people from more than 100 hundred countries studying in Cuba Medical Sciences benefit from a national strategy that prioritizes the integration of teaching, research and assistance, while observing Marti’s principle that "the best medicine is not the one that heals, but the one that takes precautions."
Posted on: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 18:03:36 +0000
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