I would Love to Practice Medicine as They Do in Cuba, Says US Student
Washington, Jul 3 (Prensa Latina) I would love to practice medicine as they do in Cuba, deeply rooted in the community, said a young US citizen that is studying in the island nation, in an interview published today by a newspaper in this country.
‘You can be a doctor and help people, but the way these (Cuban) doctors help people with just everything, being there for them every step of the way â’ every pregnancy, every vaccination, that’s the way I want to help people,’ Alexandra Skeeter told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in the state of Wisconsin.
The 24-year-old student, who recently concluded her third year at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in the Caribbean country, traveled to her home for the summer vacation, shortly after US President Donald Trump announced the reversion of several progressive measures regarding the US-Cuba rapprochement.
According to the newspaper, Skeeter has seen first hand, how the economic, trade and financial blockade of Cuba, imposed by Washington 55 years ago, has strained the Cuban health care system.
‘In the hospitals, there is a lack of medicines and a lack of resources, which would be easily remedied by (removing the blockade),’ she said.
Comparing the health care systems in Cuba and her own country, Skeeter said each has its challenges. In Cuba, it’s a lack of resources and advanced technology and in the United States, it is spiraling costs and accessibility of care for citizens.
But the young student thinks her nation could learn from the Cuban example of community-based medicine and preventive care, which she hopes to stress when she returns to practice in Milwaukee.
‘I would love to practice medicine the way they do, deeply embedded in a community where the doctor lives close or above their clinic,’ she remarked.
Skeeter, a Sherman Park native, who graduated in pre-med from the University of Minnesota-Crookston, earned a full scholarship for the seven-year program from the Cuban government, which was coordinated by the US-based Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization/Pastors for Peace.
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