Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Cuba Has Trained 170 Doctors From the US For Free
Cuba News Agency
08 Aug 2017
🖨️ Print Article
Cuba educates medical students including those from the US for free
Cuba educates medical students from around the world, including those from the US for free.

by Cuba News Agency

Under Fidel Castro’s direction, Cuban became a “medical superpower,” setting new standards for global solidarity in the interests of human health. Cuba’s Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) has been training students from the United States to be doctors since 1999, and “has graduated more than 28,500 doctors from 103 countries, free of charge.”

Cuba Has Trained 170 Doctors From the US For Free

by Cuba News Agency

This article previously appeared in Granma.

“In my country no one helps the other student, here teachers support the preparation.”

Cuba has graduated 170 doctors from the United States through the project of the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM), which was initiated by Cuban leader Fidel Castro in November 1999.
In exclusive to Cuban News Agency, Zenia Díaz Catalá, director of the general secretariat of the ELAM project, said that since the first graduation in 2005, to date, ELAM have graduated more than 28,500 doctors from 103 countries, free of charge.
Dr. David Floyd, from the 2016-2017 promotion, 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.
“For me it has been a wonderful experience, I am impressed on the link between study and work, unlike training in the United States and other nations,” stressed the young physician.
“In Cuba we are trained by touching the patient, that was the greatest thing, the solidarity; in my country no one helps the other student, here teachers support the preparation with excellent behavior,” said Floyd, an African-American, who studied in Cuba for seven years, including the pre-doctor 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, dean of that institution, said.
David Floyd, the father of the recent graduate, conveyed his eternal gratitude and said he was very impressed, pleased and honored because his son is a doctor trained in Cuba under ethical and moral principles, with a humanist conception.
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.

Cuba
socialism

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

2026 Casa Ben Linder Bluefields Delegation
Nicaragua and The Miseducation of the People of the United States
17 June 2026
Nicaragua is a living example of anti-imperialist resistance and people-centered development. The job of those in the U.S.
Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez
Cuba will not surrender! Cuba persists and resists! And that persistence is intolerable to the empire!
10 June 2026
Speech delivered by Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and president of
Carlos Martinez
Siege Socialism or Barbarism: Why We Must Stand with Cuba
10 June 2026
Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are astounding, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it loo
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: To The Aircraft Carrier Intrepid, Pedro Mir, 1962
03 June 2026
Oh, carrier Intrepid/you in these torrid waters of Santo Domingo/only out of fear.
Sam E. Anderson
Beyond the Algorithm: Defending the Cuban Revolution’s Record Against Ahistorical Attacks
03 June 2026
A critical analysis of the U.S.
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
SPEECH: Statement at the 19th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, 1964
27 May 2026
“Cuba ...
Joshua Reaves Charmelus
Unity and Sovereignty: Cuba’s True ‘Threat’ To US Interests
27 May 2026
The U.S.
Stephen Kimber
True Lies Across the Water
27 May 2026
The real story behind the so-called murder charge against former Cuban President Raúl Castro.
Roger Harris , Sara Flounders
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
20 May 2026
The same week Cuba mobilized millions to defend its revolution, the White House imposed even more illegal measures in an effort to strangle the
Struggle La Lucha
Cuba: New U.S. sanctions aim to starve people, justify military aggression
13 May 2026
Communiqué issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba — Havana, May 7, 2026

More Stories


  • Black Agenda Radio
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist , Austin Cole
    The Black Alliance for Peace Calls for a Boycott of the World Cup
    17 Jun 2026
    The Black Alliance for Peace and other organizations have called for a boycott of the 2026 World Cup being held in the United States. Before any matches were played, the U.S. banned players, fans,…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    The Knicks and New York's Disappearing Black Communities
    17 Jun 2026
    It is true that the New York Knicks' journey to a championship brought disparate communities together, but gentrification remains the norm in the city that is the capital of capital. Black people are…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Reconstruction, Seventy-Five Years After, W. E. B. Du Bois, 1943
    17 Jun 2026
    “Without the help of the American Negro, the abolition movement would have been impossible.”
  • ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    “Don’t Worry Be Happy”: The World Cup as an International Psy-Op
    17 Jun 2026
    FIFA uses the World Cup to present the United States as a legitimate nation, but the U.S. is a rogue state committing crimes against humanity. The call for a boycott is a call to decolonize football…
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    When the Revolution Comes
    17 Jun 2026
    Chris Smalls and his best friend, Derrick Palmer, led the first successful drive to unionize an Amazon warehouse. He believes that labor must decouple from the Democratic Party, as he explains in his…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us