10,500 Doctors to Graduate From Cuban Universities

Cuban medical personnel were in Haiti when the earthquake happened and are still there, while half of the NGO’s have already left. (Photo: Juan Diego Nusa Peñalver, special correspondent), a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Havana. June 27, 2013

ACADEMIC YEAR 2012-2013

10,500 doctors to graduate from Cuban universities

JOSÉ A. DE LA OSA

MORE than 10,500 medical students are to receive their degrees this July, according to preliminary figures. Of these, 5,683 are Cuban and a further 4,843 are students from 70 countries, all young people who have acquired a high level of scientific knowledge and social values linking them to the most dispossessed of the world.

Of the 70 nations represented, nine are to receive more than 100 graduates: Bolivia, 855; Ecuador, 718; Mexico, 444; Argentina, 387; El Salvador, 386; Guyana, 280; Timor Leste, 194; Angola, 118; and China, 101.

Since 1961, through 2012, more than 124,700 Cuban doctors have been trained in the country’s universities.

According to information given to Granma by Dr. José Emilio Caballero González, head of the Ministry of Public Health’s Education Administration Department, the total of graduates this year in all careers related to Medical Sciences stands at 29,712. Of these students, 24,692 are Cuban and 5,020 are from other nations.

Medical Sciences include Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, Psychology and Health Technology, this last with 21 courses within a new training plan. There are also eight broad profile degree courses in Clinical Bio-analysis, Hygiene and Epidemiology, Medical Imaging and Radiophysics, Logophonoaudiology, Nutrition, Optometry and Optics, Health Rehabilitation, and Health Information Systems.

Cuba has 13 Medical Sciences Universities and three independent faculties in Artemisa, Mayabeque and the Isla de la Juventud, plus the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM), with a total teaching staff of 37,500 professors.

This extensive system of academic training includes a network of teaching hospitals and polyclinics.

Cuban medical professors are also teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses in 20 countries. These are: Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Haiti, Angola, South Africa, Guinea Bissau, Tanzania, Guyana, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Timor Leste, Ghana, Djibouti, Mozambique, Congo, Uganda and Gambia.

The graduation ceremonies are to take place in different Cuban provinces July 19-27.

This year’s graduating class is 1.5 times greater than the number of doctors practicing in Cuba at the triumph of the Revolution in 1959.