The Medical School Scholarship Program
At the Latin American School of Medicine, in Havana, Cuba
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Trained in Cuba, U.S. Doctors Describe Month in Haiti
by Renee Feltz, the Indypendent, March 12, 2010
After the Jan. 12 earthquake that devastated Haiti, Dr. Melissa Barber received a call asking her to help treat people left injured and living in squalid conditions.
“There was no question,” said Barber, 30, who was born and raised in the Bronx and worked in quality assessment at St. Barnabas Hospital in the heart of the borough. “I actually resigned and I made plans to go to Haiti for a month. That is how much it’s ingrained in me to help the underserved communities when they are in need.”
Curriculum and plan of studies
An overview of the curriculum and general plan of studies at the Latin American School of Medicine in Havana, Cuba Read more >
Frequently Asked Questions
LATIN AMERICAN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
Full Scholarship Program to Study Medicine in Havana, Cuba
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What’s the story of the Latin American School of Medicine?
In 1998, when Hurricane Mitch devastated Nicaragua and Honduras, and Hurricane Georges lashed out at Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the Cuban government responded with a unique and generous offer. They immediately sent 2000 medical personnel to help out in the affected
countries. But Cuba contributed much more than just short-term emergency relief. They pointed out that “the permanent hurricane of poverty and underdevelopment kills more people every year than these hurricanes just did...” And Cuba presented a comprehensive plan to create long-term health-care solutions for the nations of Central America and the Caribbean which are chronically poor. The idea behind the Cuban health care plan is to save as many lives every year as were
lost in the hurricanes.
In 1988, the infant mortality rate in Nicaragua — before Hurricane Mitch — was 10 times as high as in Cuba; in Haiti it was nearly 20 times as high. And what was causing these high rates of infant death? Babies in the poorest regions die from very simple causes: dehydration, malnutrition, diarrhea, contagious diseases: problems that could be cured with a few pills, a little food or liquid, a simple vaccine. And, as Cuban President Fidel Castro said, it really wouldn’t be so difficult to save those babies’ lives. All that would be required, he said, is the medicines, and the medical personnel to administer them, and the political will to want to help.
Cuba has a highly sophisticated and world renowned health care system, and a surplus of well-trained physicians. And Cuba made a commitment to start training young people from Nicaragua, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti to be doctors — in order to create a
health-care infrastructure to serve future generations in these impoverished nations.
This is how the Latin American Medical School was founded: Cuba offered 500 full scholarships per year, for the next ten years, to students from the four nations affected by Hurricanes Mitch and Georges. In this way, Cuba would be training 5000 new doctors — young people who would not otherwise have had access to medical education — to serve in communities which had never
had access to quality medical care. The only condition attached to the scholarship was that the students had to make a commitment to return to their home countries, where they would provide medical service in the communities where they were most needed — the poorest, the hardest-hit, the most remote communities of their home countries. The campus of a former naval academy on Cuba’s north coast, just west of Havana, was quickly refurbished for this purpose, and the Latin American School of Medicine opened officially in March 1999.
The program was tremendously successful from the time it started. Other nations heard about the program and inquired about sending their own students. The program quickly grew to include students from 30 nations of Africa and the Americas, and just recently expanded again to include more than 40 nations from many parts of the world. The Cuban Ministry of Public Health has been able to accommodate the growth because of the large number of trained physicians and
professors in Cuba, and because of their unwavering commitment to the program.
Why are students from the United States studying medicine in Cuba?
The Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) has been working since 1991 on a variety of projects to bring about reconciliation and normalized relations between the United
States and Cuba, and to challenge the immoral US economic blockade of Cuba. [See below for more information about IFCO’s work.] Since 1999, IFCO has been working with the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), organizing Congressional delegations to visit Cuba.* It was during one of these delegations in May 2000 that Cuban medical school scholarships were first offered to US students. On the last night of their visit, the CBC delegation had an opportunity to meet with
Cuban President Castro. In that meeting, a Congressman from the Mississippi Delta commended Cuba “for all that you have done to provide health care for the poorest people of the world.” He had visited the Latin American Medical School, and had seen Cuba’s exemplary health care system. He had heard about the services offered free of charge by Cuban doctors in Latin America and Africa. He had heard about Cuba’s free treatment of more than 16,000 young victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Ukraine. He had been to Africa and visited a brand-new hospital in the Gambia — which turned out to have been built and staffed entirely by Cubans. He went on to talk about the critical shortage of health care services in his own home district in Mississippi.
President Castro responded in detail to the Congressman’s words. He indicated that he was aware of the living conditions and the lack of health care services in Mississippi, and in other so-called ‘third-world’ regions of our ‘first-world’ nation. And he extended an invitation for young people from Mississippi to study at the Latin American School of Medicine.
Later in June 2000, the Cuban Minister of Public Health visited Washington, DC for a meeting of the Pan American Health Organization. In a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus, he expanded the invitation, offering not just to the Mississippi Delta but to all the districts represented by the Congressional Black Caucus the opportunity to nominate students to the Latin American Medical School.
Then, in September 2000, President Castro visited New York City to participate in the Millennium Summit of the United Nations. In his historic speech at the Riverside Church, he once again expanded the medical school scholarship offer — to qualified students from all regions of the United States, from low-income communities and communities of color, who would not otherwise have access to medical education. He noted that a medical education in the US can cost more than $200,000; and he said that Cuba was interested in providing medical training to qualified students who are committed to working in medically under-served communities in the US, but would not be able to do so if they graduated with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt.
IFCO — because of its excellent working relations with many sectors in Cuba, and with the Congressional Black Caucus, and because of its history of more than 40 years of creative community organizing for social, racial, and economic justice in communities across the US — was in a unique position to assume responsibility for administering the scholarship program for US students. The first US students entered the program in the spring of 2001. By the spring of 2010, 122 US students from 29 states plus Puerto Rico and Washington, DC are enrolled, and 33 US students have already graduated with MD degrees. New students are admitted to enter the Latin American School of Medicine each February and August. Admissions requirements are
described below.
What about the curriculum and course of study?
The standard course of study at the Latin American School of Medicine is six years. All classes are taught in Spanish. Additional semesters of pre-med coursework and intensive Spanish language training are offered to students who need them, during one or more semesters before the start of the six-year course of study. (See below for more information.) The specific course offerings for each semester are listed below. The course of study for the six-year program begins each September; the Spanish intensive course is offered in the fall semester, and the pre-med course review semester is offered in the spring semester.
*thanks to generous support from the Christopher Reynolds Foundation, the Arca Foundation, and the General Service Foundation.
language should plan to enter the program in the fall semester. These students would be enrolled for seven years of study.
fully recognizes any medical school which is certified by its own government’s Ministry of Health. Therefore students who study at the Latin American Medical School are considered by the ECFMG to have received a fully accredited medical education. The Latin American School of Medicine has also been evaluated and fully accredited by the Medical Board of California, which has the most stringent standards of any state in the US. This means that graduates of the Latin American
School of Medicine are recognized as fully qualified to apply for medical residency in any state of the US.
need to pass a series of US Medical Licensing Exams (USMLEs). These are the same requirements that apply to any US student who studies in any medical school, whether in the US or in another country. The Step 1 exam is a computer-based multiple-choice exam which focuses on the
basic medical sciences. The Step 2CK exam focuses on clinical knowledge. The Step 2CS exam tests clinical skills: the student actually interacts with model patients in a simulated clinical
setting. These Steps can be taken in any order after the second year of medical school, with the written agreement of the dean of the medical school. Students at the Latin American School of Medicine begin their studies for the USMLEs starting with their first-year courses, and begin to sit for the exams after the third year of study. In addition, each student must complete a residency program in the United States, and must take the Step 3 exam during the residency program.
textbooks. IFCO is working to provide a small library of supplemental English-language medical textbooks for the use of the US students and other students from English-speaking countries.
richness of this cultural diversity is celebrated by the school. Student delegations from each nationality organize “Culture Night” galas in which they showcase and share their own cultural traditions.
inexpensive meals for a few US dollars or Cuban pesos.
were “fully hosted” — with all their expenses paid by the Cuban Ministry of Health. When President Bush, in an attempt to appeal to ultra-right-wing Cuban-American voters in Florida, tightened restrictions against Cuba in June 2004, the “fully hosted” category was eliminated and the students’ status was threatened. But IFCO launched a tremendous grassroots campaign of calls and letters to the US Treasury and State Departments, and 28 members of the Congressional
Black and Hispanic Caucuses wrote a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell, insisting on the students’ right to continue their studies. Our campaign was victorious: the US government granted a special travel authorization for all present and future students enrolled in the Latin American School of Medicine. Thus it is fully legal for students to travel to and from school.
social ministry in many local churches. IFCO’s work has focused on both domestic and international issues: on civil and human rights, education, housing, and health care; women’s rights, farmworkers’ rights, Native Americans’ rights; sterilization abuse, grand jury abuse; and the support of liberation struggles around the world. Among the tools IFCO has used to fulfill its mission are technical assistance, training, grassroots education, networking, and the creation of new organizing models.
caravan was to galvanize direct hands-on solidarity with the victims of US foreign policy in Nicaragua — to educate US citizens at the grassroots about the brutality of US policy, and to engage them in actively resisting that policy by sending aid to the Nicaraguan people. The project has grown and generalized; since 1988, we have successfully organized more than 50 caravans of aid to Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Chiapas (Mexico) and Cuba. In many
ways, the culmination of this work has been the series of 20 “Friendshipment” caravans which IFCO/Pastors for Peace has taken to Cuba. These caravans have delivered more than 3000 tons of
humanitarian aid to the Cuban people, as a nonviolent direct challenge to the brutal US economic blockade of Cuba. The caravans have also provided an opportunity for numerous US citizens to see Cuba with their own eyes. In addition to the Pastors for Peace/Friendshipment caravans, IFCO organizes study tours, delegations, construction brigades, speaking tours, exchanges, and advocacy projects, all in favor of a more humane US foreign policy in our hemisphere.
Applicants must submit an application form, personal essay, transcripts, letters of reference, medical history, and other documents. A personal interview is required; MCATs are not required. Applications are screened by IFCO’s Medical School Advisory Committee, which is made up of physicians, professors, and other professionals. Selected applicants will be invited to participate in a two-day group orientation program, which serves as an additional step in the screening process. When the Medical School Advisory Committee has made its final recommendations, the files of selected applicants are submitted to the administrators of the Latin American Medical School and the Cuban Ministry of Public Health; they make the final admissions decisions.
Please contact IFCO for application forms or more additional information:
Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO)
418 West 145th Street
New York, NY 10031
212/926-5757
212/926-5842 (fax)
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The Scholarship Program for US Students at the Latin American School of Medicine
An overview of the scholarship program for US students at the Latin American School of Medicine in Havana, Cuba. Read more >
Haiti Medical Relief: Lucius Walker on Tavis Smiley Show
http://www.tavissmileyradio.com/guests10/012910/LuciusWalker.html
Hear Rev. Lucius Walker talk about the eight US graduates of the Latin American School of Medicine who are headed to Haiti. Read more >
Check Out Our New Speakers Bureau!
Now is Your Opportunity to Work with Our Network of Local, National, and International Organizers and Educators Read more >
Video: Che's Anatomy
This video report by Gabrielle Weiss originally aired on the PBS program "Foreign Exchange" with Fareed Zakaria on December 1, 2006.
