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Re: Legal system defining...longFrom: art fougner, md (evsono@pipeline.com)Mon Apr 23 17:47:30 2001
and now for something completely different - (el, this bud's for you) Fidel's Med School / Americans studying medicine in new Cuban program PUBLICATION: Newsday BY: Ron Howell. STAFF CORRESPONDENT EDITION: ALL EDITIO SECTION: News DATE: 04-22-2001 A05 Havana - Mirtha Arzu hopes someday to return to New York City as a physician and fight to create a health system that adequately cares for poor minorities. "I am ready to learn and be educated by the Cubans, so I can return and help people in my community," said Arzu, 20, of the Bronx, daughter of Afro-Honduran immigrants. "We don't have enough doctors for the poor." She is one of eight American medical students at a controversial new program here for people from black, Latino and Asian communities in the United States. As Cuba educates those young men and women, the government of President Fidel Castro also gets to show off one of its greatest accomplishments: its free and extensive health care system. Cuba has such an oversupply of doctors that it exports them around the world to work in medically underserved countries of Latin America and Africa. But while Cubans have doctors in every tiny neighborhood, the country is suffering from a shortage of medicine and technical equipment, largely because of a four-decade U.S. trade embargo. Also, Cuban doctors are notoriously underpaid, receiving the equivalent of about $25 a month. The offer to let up to 500 American students study at the Latin American School of Medicine was made by Castro during a meeting last year with members of the Congressional Black Caucus. The eight students who arrived here two weeks ago said they are aware that many anti-Castro Cubans in the United States oppose their being here, but the students said they agree with Cuba's approach to health care: lots of doctors and free treatment. Arzu was registered this semester as a media arts major at the Brooklyn campus of Long Island University, but jumped at the chance to apply for the program when she learned about it. Another New Yorker studying at the Latin American School of Medicine is Khalil Marshall, 20, of the Bronx, who said he would like to revolutionize the way medicine is practiced in the United States. "I would like to change the whole way we think about health care and about taking care of people," said Marshall, who had served two years in the U.S. Navy before deciding to take Castro up on his offer. "I want to go back and practice free health care ...There are no homeless people on the streets in Cuba, there are no people who don't have health care in Cuba...This is what I want to bring back to the United States. A lot of people say, 'Well, this is communism. This is socialism.' But is it bad, what is here? Everybody being taken care of?" Like some of the other students, Marshall applied for the Cuban medical program through the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization. That group is affiliated with the New York-based Pastors for Peace, which delivers medical supplies to Cuba and promotes increased ties with the island. The 2-year-old Latin American School of Medicine trains about 3,000 students from the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa who plan to spend six years studying and then go back to practice medicine in their home countries. Unlike U.S. medical schools, it doesn't require a bachelor's degree for admission. The campus is on sprawling grounds right off the waters of the Caribbean, about a 30-minute drive from downtown Havana. The Hemingway Marina, where yacht owners from the United States dock their vessels and then relax and dine in luxury, is just down the road. Sophia Ali, who is 21 and lived in Brooklyn before deciding to travel the world two years ago, applied for the program because she said she believes wholeheartedly in Cuban-style socialism, especially when it comes to medical care. "I am here because I worked in Cuban solidarity while I was in the United States," she said, speaking with the other students in a lounge of the school. "I know that I'm making a statement by coming here and I don't hesitate in making that statement." Ali was born in the United States to emigrant parents from Guyana in South America. The American students who finish the six-year program will have to take special examinations and meet other requirements to practice medicine in their respective states. Critics say that, even after six years of training in Cuba, the Americans may have a hard time obtaining medical licenses in the United States. But in interviews one afternoon last week, the Americans said they were confident they would be well equipped to pass the required tests. "Every student trained here is on a level that's superior to anything I've seen in the United States," Marshall said. U.S. students accepted at the program here must have high school diplomas and be U.S. citizens from minority groups between the ages of 18 and 25. Although some of the students come from politically radical families, one said her parents were concerned about her being in a communist country. Wing Wu, 23, from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, said of her parents, who emigrated from communist China, "They're a little bit worried, but they trust me." At least two of the students left children behind in the United States. Nadege Loiseau, 25, from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was struggling through college and working while taking care of her 2- year-old son. She misses the boy, whom she left with her parents, but said she believes she is doing the right thing. "I see it as the opportunity of a lifetime," she said. Her motivation comes in large part, she said, from the experience of her parents, emigrants from Haiti who struggled to make sure their children had access to health care. "My whole goal is to give back to my community," she said. Marshall left behind a wife and a 1 1/2-year-old daughter, but said that while he misses them, "I am not homesick" because his Cuban hosts have been warm and caring. Some of the students,like Arzu, whose parents are from Honduras,speak Spanish. But most are spending their first several weeks in intensive language study, because all of their science and other courses will be in Spanish. Marshall said the Cuban government is paying all expenses, including 100 pesos a month ($5 at the current exchange rate) as a stipend. All he had to pay, he said, was $300 for the flight from New York to Mexico and then to Havana. Like other students, he has called home collect once or twice. But he would like to purchase Cuban phone cards so that he can make direct calls, though at roughly $3 a minute, those calls are very expensive. "When you go back to New York," he said to a reporter, "Could you call my family and ask them if they could find out when someone is coming here, and please send me a little money?" © Copyright 2001, Newsday Inc. Ron Howell. STAFF CORRESPONDENT, Fidel's Med School / Americans studying medicine in new Cuban program, 04-22-2001, pp A05. art
At Mon, 23 Apr 2001, Richard Chudacoff, MD wrote:
>
-- art fougner, md
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