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Struggling students opt for medical school in Cuba

11:45 H | Topics: Cuba - Education - Politics - Society

In what may be Fidel Castro's best PR moment of the year, and, coincidentally, excellent promo for Michael Moore's new film Sicko, 8 American students have graduated from medical school -- in Cuba. Reports the International Herald Tribune:

Four New Yorkers, three Californians and a Minnesota native, all from minority backgrounds, have studied in Havana since April 2001.

The six women and two men made up the first class of Americans to graduate from the Latin American School of Medicine since Castro offered free medical training to U.S. students after meeting with a delegation from the Congressional Black Caucus seven years ago.

"I've learned that medicine is not a business," said Toussaint Reynolds, a graduate from Massapequa, New York. "I will be a better doctor in the United States for it."

Reverend Lucius Walker -- a pastor for the non-profit Pastors for Peace and "godfather" of the students during their stay in Cuba -- says that the education that the Americans received for free in Cuba, which included food, shelter and books, would have cost them more than $200,000 in the United States.

According to AP, this is the first time American students have graduated from the Cuban program at the ELAM (Escuela Latinoamericana de Ciencias Médicas) but there are currently 100 more Americans studying there. There are currently 10,000 students studying to be physicians at the institution, and this year 1000 students from 30 countries graduated along with the American doctors.

Via / International Herald Tribune and Yahoo! Telemundo

Image: U.S. medical students Wing Wu (L) and Carmen Landau talk to Reuters in Havana July 23, 2007 (REUTERS/Enrique De La Osa)

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