U.S. medical students graduate debt-free in Cuba

HAVANA (Reuters) - Eight Americans graduated on Tuesday from a Cuban medical school after six years of studies fully funded by Fidel Castro's government.

They plan to return home, take board exams for licenses to practice and provide cheap health care in poor neighborhoods.

"Cuba offered us full scholarships to study medicine here. In exchange, we commit ourselves to go back to our communities to provide health care to underserved people," said Carmen Landau, 30, of Oakland, California.

The program is part of Castro's pet project to send thousands of Cuban doctors abroad to tend to the poor in developing countries, such as Venezuela and Bolivia, and train tens of thousand of medical students from developing countries in Cuba.

Officials in Cuba's communist government relish the idea of training doctors for the United States, its arch-enemy since Castro took power in a leftist revolution in 1959.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070724/hl_nm/cuba_usa_doctors_dc

:applause: :applause: :applause:

Best wishes to the new doctors, and may many more join them!

Great news--thanks for posting!

"Officials in Cuba's communist government relish the idea of training doctors for the United States, its arch-enemy since Castro took power in a leftist revolution in 1959."

Such evil!

Instead of pointing out that WE should be providing free education for such things. The public can only handle so much info. If they didn't add that, their brains might have blown up. LOL!

Obviously they are unlimited. What about engineers?

US students studying medicine there.

So, now that 8 are graduating, that means there are now potentially 80 more doctors to graduate from Cuba. That's 88 more doctors available for poor people. Great news!

Doctors are necessary for our survival, especially us poor folk. Engineers aren't.

get terrible care...Castro is making a helluva point

I'm in debt myself. Not as large as that amount, but still enough to keep me up at night.

How many other countries drive students into massive debt? Besides the land of the free of course.

(R&K)

so you play nice to the bosses and keep your nose to the grind

Her med school years will leave her $250,000 in debt.

We'll get free medical care and free schooling, just like other countries have, when we demand it.

And not a moment sooner.

"From ME to WE"

:evilgrin:

:hi:

Since I was still in England, I didn't get to the face-to-face meeting with him, although I did hear him preach on Sunday (the sermon non-political). Here is what I'm told second-hand from people who were at the reception:

He said that at announcement time during one of the churches he visited (for those who don't know, bishops are supposed to visit every church in their diocese at least once a year), a young African-American woman got up and said that she was going home after six years of medical school in Cuba and that she was grateful to the Cuban government for financing her medical education and to the members of the church for befriending her.

He also said that after Hurricane Katrina, Castro offered to send a 75-person medical team to New Orleans but that Bush turned down the offer.

Asked about religious freedom, he said that there had been periods when restrictions were harsh, but that the government's attitude now was quite relaxed.

she will be a quarter of a million dollars in debt! She wants to provide medical care for underserved populations (i.e., poor people and people without insurance) as well as work with Doctors without Borders and in international disaster relief. But she will have to spend many years first earning big money to pay off those loans and to cover the necessary malpractice insurance for practicing emergency room medicine here in the US to pay off the loans.

Every other industrialized country actually subsidizes the training of doctors. In ours, we put them so far into debt that they don't dare use their skills to do the sort of work my daughter desperately wants to use hers for.

of the US health care system, it sounds.

One makes huge profits off of debt, and the other is assured a marketplace driven by the need for high prices to offset borrowing costs.

:rofl:

right-wing governments of the past 27 years, they would have an empire stretching from the Far East to Ireland, probably including Russia (the Russians have historically been terrified of the Chinese) - the whole of the Old World; and probably enough men under arms to police the population on a one-to-one basis.... and still have men to spare.

Just watch...sad but true.

a medical board in the United States will be allowed to issue licenses to Cuban-trained doctors? This administration is far too interested in keeping the idiotic embargo going.

You seem to be thinking that I am criticizing Cuba. Please re-read and try again.

Look, I didn't do a DU nasty by demanding you provide a link, or any other typical DU snark.

I simply asked how you know that.

I don't think you know how the Cuban program is set up. It has taken all that into account.

*YOU* assumed I was criticizing you about criticizing Cuba. You assumed wrong.

So, you can snark at me all you want, but that doesn't change that these 8 students are all set to become practicing drs in the US.

Since you wanted to snark and tell me to "re-read and try again", then that's what you can do with the information about the Cuban program. Instead of assuming you know what will happen, read the info, and "try again". You can find it on the health care for all site.

Happy reading.

I'm guessing you want the last word. Have at it.

Bye now.

Unless there's a law that forbids state medical boards from certifying doctors trained in Cuba, why not?

how to pass all the exams when they get back here.

Cuba has left nothing to chance.

practice in the US.

http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/idepc/refugee/ihtf/foreigndocs.pdf

How dare they allow an American medical student to go through med school without 100,000 in student loans! We've got to protect the bankers who offer student loans! :sarcasm:

A Canadian who went there in the early 60s -- I don't think for the purpose of attending med school, but she did, and she stayed, and she became head of a teaching polyclinic.

She returned to Canada about 25 years ago, and is just retiring from practice here now.

Her Cuban husband went to Miami shortly after she left Cuba. He was also a doctor. I don't know whether he practised there ... so my post is kinda pointless, hmm. But I can't imagine why, if he had been able to pass the exams / complete the residency or whatever, he wouldn't have been able to practice, just as she did here.

In Canada, at least, there are sometimes unnecessarily stringent requirements for foreign doctors wanting to practice here, and there is constant talk about establishing recognition standards for foreign qualifications that would ease the restrictions that individual doctors (and other professionals) have to meet. A big problem is essentially quotas -- competition for the residency places available, and the low number of foreign applicants accepted. Many of those restrictions seem to be protectionism in the interests of current members of the profession, rather than necessary restrictions in the public interest.