Cuba

This article describes the experience of Guatemalan students at Cuba’s Latin American Medical School. The students’ education emphasizes health problems and diseases characterizing the epidemiological situation in their home country and in-depth courses in disaster management, as well as clinical experience in Guatemala. [adapted from author]

The world’s 1,691 medical schools and 5,492 nursing schools are not producing enough graduates to cover the massive global deficit of doctors, nurses, and midwives. One scaling-up initiative addressing these critical shortages is Cuba’s Latin American Medical School. This article describes those efforts. [adapted from introduction]

This article describes the Cuban medical education system. The role of Cuban physicians internationally is discussed, as well as the placement of international students in Cuban medical schools.

This document describes a methodology for planning of human resources development in environmental and occupational health which was field-tested in Cuba, Mexico and South Africa between 1994 and 1996. In addition to outlining the rationale for such planning and the recommended steps in the planning process, the country case studies are discussed in detail with a focus on the ingredients for successful implementation in future. [author’s description]

This article describes the efforts within the Cuban medical system to collaborate with health authorities around the globe to develop medical education programs to train such urgently-needed professionals with curricula formulated to meet international standards and local health needs. Special emphasis is placed on the assistance that Cuba provided to Gambia in establishing a medical school in that country. [from author]

The Institute of Medicine’s Academy of Science has recommended that medical schools incorporate information on CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) into required medical school curricula so that graduates will be able to competently advise their patients in the use of CAM. The report states a need to study models of systems that integrate CAM and allopathic medicine. The authors present Cuba’s health care system as one such model and describe how CAM (or natural and traditional medicine) is integrated into all levels of clinical care and medical education in Cuba. The authors conclude that there is much to learn from the Cuban experience to inform U.S.