Cuba trains disadvantaged US medical students

Kay Brennan Leeds

Students from disadvantaged backgrounds have become the first from the United States to study medicine in Cuba.

Eight high school graduates, including two from the Bronx in New York, have received scholarships to the Latin American School of Medical Sciences in Havana. They will study alongside aspiring doctors from 24 Latin American, Caribbean, and African nations. Chosen from more than 100 applicants, the students intend to return to the US and practise medicine in the same poor communities where they grew up.

Cuban officials hope that the scheme, which was suggested by the president Fidel Castro to visiting members of the US Congress in Havana, will help Americans have a better understanding of Cuba. The US government agreed to the scheme, recognising the programme as a cultural and educational exchange. Critics, however, say that the students are being used as mere propaganda tools.

Dagoberto Rodriguez, the Cuban foreign ministry's director of North American affairs, speaking to the New York Times, disagrees. "The objective Cuba has is to help resolve the serious problems of health in the United States. If there is the consequence that it helps for cultural understanding between the people of Cuba and the United States, we welcome it."

The American students said that they were aware of the criticism that Cuba has faced over its human rights record, but they also believed that US policy over the years has not helped. The trade embargo is strongly opposed by many Americans, including members of Pastors for Peace, a group based in the US that carried out the application and screening process for the medical school scheme.

Mirtha Arzu, a student from the Bronx, disagrees with the propaganda claims. "I'd rather be used for something positive than something negative," she said. "At least I'm going to go back and show my community what I have been used for."

The students also believed that the US had not acknowledged the successes that Cuba had in public health, success which has eluded its Caribbean and Latin American neighbours. Cuba's medical system, although beleaguered by shortages, has been praised by some experts as a model for community and preventive medicine, especially in the developing world.

A scheme to attract students from less privileged backgrounds has also been set up at Guy's, King's, and St Thomas's Medical School in London. The access course, which will begin in the next academic year, will take students from colleges in deprived areas of south London, who do not have the A level grades needed for admission to medical school but who have good references from tutors.

The students will complete a six year course with the first year spent learning key skills such as essay writing. They will then join the normal degree programme. Ten students will begin in September and there are plans to increase the numbers in future years. There are no plans at present to take foreign students from disadvantaged backgrounds.



studentBMJ 2001;09:261-304 August ISSN 0966-6494