Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Latin American School of Medicine
logo
founding November 15, 1999
Sponsorship state
place Havana
country Cuba
Students 12,000
Website www.sld.cu

The Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina (Latin American School of Medicine, ELAM) is a university in Cuba specially set up to train medical students from abroad. It has existed since 1999 and is headquartered in the capital Havana .

history

The idea to found the school arose in 1998 when over 10,000 people died and millions were left homeless as a result of Hurricanes Georges and Mitch in Central America and the Caribbean. At that time, Cuba sent medical aid brigades to five countries in the region. The export of medical professionals has been an integral part of Cuban foreign policy since the 1990s. Against this background, President Fidel Castro announced in November 1998 the establishment of a medical college for the free education of students from developing countries, whereupon the Cuban authorities immediately began to implement the idea. The university was opened in November 1999 and began regular operations. As founding rector, Juan Carrizo headed ELAM until his death in November 2012.

Since 2012, ELAM has also been training students whose training costs are not borne by the Cuban state, but by their respective countries of origin or third governments. In addition, ELAM is involved in medical training programs in 67 countries through bilateral agreements.

ELAM is by far the largest of the three international universities operated by Cuba - alongside it there is the International Film and Television University in San Antonio de los Baños, founded in 1985, and the International Sports University in San José de las Lajas, which has existed since 2001 .

In the meantime, ELAM graduates have set up their own initiatives to promote health care in various countries.

education

ELAM is limited to training general practitioners in primary health care. Students who do not speak Spanish as their mother tongue complete an intensive Spanish course over the course of a semester. The first two years of medical training are taught on campus, after which the students are divided into clinics spread across the country, where they are obliged to take on day and night watches from the third year of training. As a rule, the training, which is divided into ten semesters, is followed by a one-year internship and the final state examination to obtain the title of Doctor of Medicine . The internship can also be completed outside of Cuba as part of international training partnerships.

In addition to the subjects that are directly relevant to medical practice, the study program includes physical education in the first four semesters and English lessons for the entire ten semesters.

Students

The school accepts an estimated 1,500 new students annually, the majority of whom come from poorer regions in developing countries, where medical care is the worst. There is also, among other things, a scholarship program for Americans, which is pre-selected through a US non-governmental organization. Around 13,000, mostly female, up-and-coming physicians from over 100 different ethnic groups study at ELAM at the same time. When allocating study places, preference is given to members of disadvantaged minorities. The respective embassies of Cuba are usually involved in the selection process in the countries of origin.

The first students came from Nicaragua and arrived in Cuba in February 1999. When ELAM opened in November 1999, there were 933 students from 18 countries. The first 1,600 successfully trained doctors left ELAM in August 2005, and the number of graduates is now over 23,000.

After graduation, students may be subject to special contractual obligations. For example, South African students must sign a declaration of commitment before they are sent to ELAM, according to which they will be available to the South African state health system after completing their studies for the duration corresponding to the training (usually five years) at each location specified by the authority. In the summer of 2013, the number of South African medical students in Cuba was around 1,000.

location

The school's headquarters are located on the 120 hectare site of a former naval academy in northeast Havana, on the edge of the suburb of Santa Fe , which is part of the municipality of Playa . ELAM operates a second campus in the eastern Cuban metropolis of Santiago de Cuba .

literature

  • Daniel Hammett: Physician Migration in the Global South between Cuba and South Africa, in: International Migration Vol. 52, Heft 4, pp. 41–52, from August 2014 (English)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ MEDICC Honors the Life & Memory of Dr. Juan Carrizo, Rector of the Latin American Medical School, ( Memento of February 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the NGO MEDICC, accessed on February 17, 2015 (English)
  2. ↑ a b Cuba’s ELAM - making dreams come true, in: Arab News from October 31, 2013, accessed on February 18, 2015 (English)
  3. ↑ Kalyan Kumar: New Zealand and Cuba Sign Agreement for Medical Cooperation in Pacific Islands, ( Memento of February 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) in: International Business Times of February 17, 2015 (English)
  4. ↑ Alexander Braja: The first hospital of the Garifuna, in: Quetzal from May 2014, accessed on February 18, 2015
  5. ↑ a b c David Böcking: US doctor trained in Cuba: Castro's girlfriend in the Bronx, in: Spiegel Online from December 22, 2014, accessed on February 18, 2015
  6. ↑ Síntesis del Plan de Estudio de la Carrera de Medicina ( Memento from July 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF), overview of the study program on the ELAM website, accessed on February 18, 2015 (Spanish)
  7. ↑ FAQ: Full Scholarship Program to Study Medicine in Cuba, on the website of the NGO IFCO, accessed on February 17, 2015 (English)
  8. ↑ a b Latin American Medical School (ELAM), on the website of the NGO MEDICC, accessed on February 17, 2015 (English)
  9. ↑ Profiles in Commitment: Conversations with ELAM Students, in: MEDICC Review from March 2005, accessed on February 18, 2015 (English)
  10. ↑ Matthew Hirsch: SA-Cuba medical program criticized, in: IOL News of July 11, 2013, accessed on February 18, 2015 (English)
  11. ↑ Anna Kovac: Cuba Trains Hundreds of Haitian Doctors to Make a Difference (PDF), in: MEDICC Review from August 6, 2007, accessed on February 17, 2015 (English)

Coordinates: 23 ° 3 '24 "  N , 82 ° 32' 22.4"  W.