Wickham: Hey America, the Cold War is over
Wickham: Hey America, the Cold War is over
DeWayne Wickham, 7:49 p.m. EDT June 15, 2015
Normalizing U.S. relations with Cuba also means embracing Cuba's medical diplomacy.
HAVANA — When Alexandra Skeeter finished college in May 2014, she didn't want to do much of anything for awhile. Like a lot of students who successfully juggle a lot of things in school — she went to the University of Minnesota on a volleyball scholarship and graduated with a 3.3 GPA — Skeeter felt she needed a breather.
But instead of taking a break, she decided to go straight to medical school — in Cuba.
Skeeter, who is black, is one of more than 100 students from the United States who are enrolled in Cuba's Latin American School of Medicine, a huge training facility a 30-minute drive from the center of this city that was created by the communist government in 1999 to produce doctors for underserved communities in developing nations. It also increased Cuba's political stock in many parts of Africa and the American hemisphere, from which most of the students come.
In all, there are students from 117 nationalities attending this medical school. Students who don't speak Spanish get six months of intensive language training. Some who have difficulty keeping up with their studies take a class called "Learn to Learn." It helps them to be better students by teaching them how to take notes, improve their reading comprehension and make better use of the time they put into studying. Several of the U.S. students said they wish they had taken a course like that in high school.
More:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/06/15/cuba-medical-school-us-defection-column/71216368/
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