U.S. Med Students Study For Free In Cuba

Graduates Pledge To Work In Low-Income Neighborhoods In Exchange

(CBS)  It's graduation day at the world's largest medical school. Among the sea of 2,000 graduates in lab coats are eight Americans, CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella reports, new doctors educated in Communist Cuba.

Evelyn Erickson is from Washington Heights in New York City. She was lured to Cuba's Latin American School of Medicine by the promise of a free education — a gift of sorts from the Cuban government.

Fidel Castro started the school in 1999. His goal was to train people at no cost, in return for their pledge to practice medicine in poor communities back home — an offer extended to a handful of U.S. students in 2001.

It's a world away from the United States. Home for Evelyn and her fellow students was an old army barracks with bunk beds, cold showers and a four-dollar-a-month stipend. And, unlike the U.S. where students spend four years in classrooms and labs, these students spend six years in classrooms and clinics.

"They were calling me doctor, and I was like, 'No, no I'm not the doctor. I'm the medical student,'" Evelyn says. "But what happens is that we are the people who examine the patients from the very beginning."

They also learn about a much different healthcare system, which was documented in the recent Michael Moore film Sicko, where all services are free and everyone is covered.

"I was one of the people that was there translating for these patients when they came here to Cuba, and so I was actually there hearing their story," Evelyn says. "And I think it proposed a really good question about looking at our medical system and seeing what kinds of things we need to change."

Still, Cuba is no healthcare paradise. The hospitals are crumbling, doctors make about 20 dollars a month and there are shortages of almost everything from drugs to high-tech equipment.

Cobiella asks Evelyn if she thinks she'll be accepted as a doctor back in the U.S. with an education from Cuba.

"I think so," Evelyn says. "I would like to believe that we will be."

Evelyn and her fellow graduates face one final hurdle before they can practice in the United States: passing the U.S. medical board exams. But by the looks on their faces, they're not worried a bit.

[luiszuniga]

How is it possible that American students may study medicine in Cuba for free while the Cuban people live in extreme poverty and most Cuban students are deprived of that opportunity due to the system of quotas to enter a university? The answer is obvious: Fidel Castro does it to promote himself and earn popularity and sympathy abroad. Most newspaper headlines around the world are printing today how "kind and solidarious" are Castro and his revolution. Just simple: A "cult to his personality". Cuba is a theater of lies and hidden intentions with a repressed and abused people. A story typical of all communist countries. That is why communism is collapsing everywhere. Manipulation cannot last.

[harp1963]

Pretty soon the smart high school kids will be going to Ethiopia for med school since it costs so much to go to med school in the United States of Greedmongers.

I can't believe the Republicans haven't figured out a way to charge us to breath air yet.

P.S.

Remember, Exxon only made 9 billion in the 1st quarter of this year. So when they lower gas prices to 2.95 a gallon, just remember the new American mantra,"It's better than nothing."

[edintex]

briannorwood,
I am self employed. $700 a month for insurance is a burden for me. That $700 already includes a "premium" for the higher costs of healthcare associated with the uninsured and underinsured people, NOT THE INDIGENT PEOPLE. The healthcare providers charge more to the people who do pay to make up for the ones who don't or can't.

Now there are many, many people who could afford to purchase insurance, but will not sacrifice for something they feel the government should pay for.

The indigent people in our community are cared for by the Harris County Texas Hospital District who operates on a taxpayer provided budget of nearly 1 BILLION dollars. They operate 3 major hospitals and numerous clinics. My homeowner taxas pay for this. People who use this system pay only if they can. NOBODY in our city/county has to go without healthcare if they need it!
Additionally, our state has a program that subsidizes the cost of insurance for our children citizens.

The county's homeowners have been paying taxes to the point that it hurts. We are good citizens.

[briannorwood]

EDinTex:

You pay $700 per month for insurance. I get full coverage with $10 copay for $90 a month with my company. I'm a software engineer, so I make a pretty good salary. We have mail clerks who make about $15,000 a year and get the same deal.

Point is, wouldn't it be better for all of us if we paid into a system in accordance with our incomes?

I would be happy to pay more if I knew I was helping everyone get access to good healthcare. I see it as my duty as a good Christian and a good citizen.

[edintex]

CBSreader4, 45% of our local taxas go to the schools, and they never seem to have enough. Every 2 years we are POUNDED for more bonds. If they can't raise the tax rate, then the county raises the valuation of our home to generate more revenue. More than 1/3 of my mortgage payment is now taxes & insurance.

I wonder about the continuous increases in college tuitions. They continually receive endowments that pay for expansions, etc. Where is the yearly increases in tuition (going up as fast as health care) going?

I would sure like to find out how fast the college professors wages and benefit levels has risen on a year by year basis. I bet the professors and administrators would vehemently oppose us knowing!

[cbsreader4]

A significant portion of our taxes, at least where I live, go directly to pay for and support our schools. the money first goes to build the school (university, college, high school, etc.) and then it goes to equip it, staff it and then supply it and so forth. Yet despite all that we pay in taxes day in and day out we still cannot get an education at one of these schools unless we can afford to pay their inflated tuition, fees, surcharges, books, supplies, parking and on and on.

The headlines in the paper continue to shout of doctor shortages or nurse shortages or this or that shortages across the U.S. Well, any wonder why?

[edintex]

I am tired of hearing people complain about how they must decide if or when to go to the doctor or that they must wait a terribly long time to get in or wait in the office or how much they must pay out of their pocket.

I purchased my own private health insurance policy for my family of 6. It costs me roughly $700 per month for a PPO policy. We do without some "wants" to pay for the insurance, but we see it as a necessity; more important than a set of fancy car rims or stereos or new cars or other wants.

Even with insurance, we still pay when we see a doctor. It sometimes takes us months to get into a doctor, we have to wait hours right alonside cash customers. We just grit our teeth and bear it.

After we are healed by the doctor, we are THANKFUL for the system that produced the doctors and technology (which the rest of the world frequently comes over here to use), and THANKFUL that we sacrificed so that we could have our own HEALTH INSURANCE. We don't (and shouldn't) depend on the government to insure or take care of us like the way so many other people believe it should be.

It is a fact that if everybody purchased health insurance, the cost would come way down and would be very affordable for everyone. So everybody quit whining and do the right thing for your family. If at all possible, SACRIFICE SOME WANTS AND GET HEALTH INSURANCE!

[sjc_1]

It is absolutely immoral how this country has turned a humanitartian activity like health care into the greed mongering sewer that it is today.

It is absolutely shameful and everyone that is parasitically extracting a killing from this bloated gravy train should be forever ashamed of themselves for their greed and the harm that they have done bankrupting honest and innocent people.

[extremophil]

You get what you pay for.

[brianbwb-2009]

Singapore is another country that also subsidizes med school, in exchange for a bond to serve four years in public hospitals, whose prices are controlled and kept affordable by the government. As a result, Singapore's health care system for average people is the equivalent of the best of the US's elite private hospitals, because they don't have the burden of economic sanctions, and other negative forms of interference from the US, and the US cronies in Europe.

And if you have the money, their "elite" private hospitals provide care far beyond America's "elite"...

[brianbwb-2009]

"Fidel Castro started the school in 1999. His goal was to train people at no cost, in return for their pledge to practice medicine in poor communities back home %u2014 an offer extended to a handful of U.S. students in 2001."

Which is worse, a "dictator" who thinks and acts like this, or a "trickle down" elitist "dictator", who says basically "thanks for your taxes, now you're on your own, deal with the for profit insurance companies, suckers..."

The truthful answer depends on whether you're rich or not...

[burneb]

Cuba is a poor 3rd-world dictatorship, whose economy our government has tried to strangle for 40 years. Yet they can provide basic universal health care that is respected world-wide, but the U.S. cannot afford to do so?

[jscribe58]

It would be great if things like this help to point out the deplorable medical conditions in this country. Medical care has rapidly become unavailable to more people every day. If the doctors don't stop lobbying any attempt at all people having medical care available to them,they're going to find themselves out of patients who can afford to see them.

THe amount of people in this country fighting tooth and nail to stay alive is becoming impossible to ignore. I for one have had a heart attack, but have not been able to have a heart doctor look at me for two years because they do not take patients who have no insurance. I have a skin rash, and have had to wait two months to see a dermatologyst to pay cash that I haven't got to find out what's wrong. I can't help wondering what cancer patients are doing.