Many future American physicians have been training in Cuba for free. This fact exposes some fundamental flaws not only in the medical schools, but in the U.S. education system itself.
Profit-Oriented Healthcare
Not since Michael Moore’s 2007 documentary movie, “Sicko,” has such a brutal look at the sorry state of the healthcare system in the United States been exposed to the public. In the documentary, Moore compared Cuba’s universal healthcare system with the U.S. profit-oriented system.
It is this same profit-oriented mindset in medical education that forces many bright medical students to study elsewhere. As featured in a RawStory article, Cuba has been a haven and training ground for these would-be doctors.
Cuba Medical School
The story of Dr. Lillian Holloway was featured in the article. It tells about her serendipitous travel to Cuba where she learned about the ELAM or the Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina, formerly Escuela Latinoamericana de Ciencias Médicas.
ELAM is a medical school that offers a free medical degree for qualified persons, whether they are US or Cuban citizens. The only catch is that the medical student must promise to practice community and family medicine.
Holloway grew up in a rough neighborhood in West Philadelphia and her family did not have the financial capability to send her to medical school. Becoming a doctor was the last thing in her mind that she considered personally achievable.
Her life changed when she traveled with her niece to Cuba in 2000 and learned about ELAM. Her niece suddenly became sick but luckily there were five doctors living in the same apartment where they were staying.
The doctors helped Holloway’s niece to get proper medical treatment. She also learned from the doctors about the free medical education program at ELAM.
Dr. Holloway was among the first Americans who graduated from ELAM with a medical degree. She now practices family medicine in Chicago.
The Graduates
According to Medicc.org, more than 23,000 physicians graduated from ELAM since the classes started in 2005. These physicians are all from economically underprivileged communities from around the world, including the USA.
More underprivileged but intellectually capable American medical students enroll each year at ELAM with idealistic prospects of becoming doctors in economically oppressed areas.
Featured image via PublicDomainPictures.net
