Havana, Aug 4 (Prensa Latina) Some 170 students from the United States have reportedly graduated as doctors in Cuba free of charge thanks to the program of the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM), which was initiated by Cuban leader Fidel Castro in November 1999.
In remarks to Cuban News Agency (ACN), ELAM’s Director General Zenia Díaz Catalá said that since the first graduation in 2005, to date, the institution have graduated more than 28,500 doctors from 103 countries.
Dr. David Floyd, from the 2017 class, thanked the Cuban leadership, the Cuban people, the teachers and workers of this noble project, an example of integration between peoples for a more humane world, he stressed.
‘For me it has been a wonderful experience, I am impressed on how the school program combines study and work, unlike training in the United States and other nations, the young physician highlighted.
In Cuba we are trained by touching the patient, that was the greatest thing to provide a feeling of human solidarity; in my country no one helps the other student, here teachers support the preparation with excellent attitude, said Floyd, an Afro-American, who studied in Cuba for seven years, including the post-graduate studies.
The doctor finished his curricula at the Salvador Allende Faculty of the University of Medical Sciences of Havana, an institution that graduated 52 foreign doctors, 25 of them from the United States, Dr. Suiberto Echavarría, the institution’s dean, pointed out.
David Floyd, the father of the fresh graduate, conveyed his eternal gratitude, adding he was very impressed, pleased and honored because his son is a doctor trained in Cuba under ethical and moral principles, under a humanist concept.
Diaz Catalá explained that currently the ELAM project has a enrollment of 4,969 students from 112 nations in the 21 faculties of the country’s medical science universities, of which 83 are from the United States.
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