What's New at MEDICC

MEDICC Offers Diploma Course with AMSA

MEDICC and AMSA (the American Medical Student Association) have teamed up to offer a two-week diploma course, devoted to Cuba's national healthcare system. The course will be held in Havana and outlying provinces from June 30 through July 14, 2001, and will focus on site visits to give participants a look at healthcare delivery in Cuba and healthcare policy in action.

Sponsors: MEDICC and AMSA's Global Health Action Committee.

Who is eligible: U.S. medical students.

Duration: Two weeks.

Cost: $1500 from Miami (this is an all-inclusive fee, and covers round-trip airfare Miami-Havana-Miami, tuition for the course, lodging in graduate student housing, breakfast and lunch daily, transportation to all activities, translation services for all activities, and airport transfers).

Contact: Aileen Langston (coordinator of the course for AMSA), 7233 Staffordshire #4, Houston, TX, or aileenlangston@yahoo.com. Aileen is a fourth-year medical student at Baylor College of Medicine. Please contact her right away, as space in the course is limited.

MEDICC Co-Sponsors Gender and Health Symposium in Cuba

MEDICC was proud to be part of the First International Symposium on Gender and Health held in Santiago de Cuba (October 25-28), organized by the Cuban Society of Family Medicine (see MR Interview in this issue with Society President Dr. Clarivel Presno). Nearly 30 U.S. participants attended the event, which brought together some of the most thoughtful researchers on the subject in the Americas and Cuba. Particularly welcome were presentations by Cuban health professionals on their community-based experiences in introducing a gender perspective into already existing healthcare projects and programs. In this context, the plenary heard from Isis Leiva, psychologist and Director of a community polyclinic in Cienfuegos, and Yenisbel Leyva, RN, of the Cumanayagua Polyclinic in rural Cuba, on incorporating gender into municipal health actions.

Isis Leiva and Yenisbel Leyva, RN

Among the international presenters were Dr. Ramona Tascoe, Chair of the International Affairs and Women's Health Sections of the National Medical Association, who noted "American women do not bear the direct brunt of globalization's neo-liberal structural adjustment policies, and...yes, American women have more, and suffer less. We, nevertheless, struggle with gender-driven disparities in the U.S., and thus we stand in solidarity with the Caribbean and Latin American communities, as well as those most vulnerable populations in the Southern Hemisphere around the world."

"We acknowledge the pervasive feminization of poverty," she told the plenary, "the negligent underminig of family structures, and the resultant implications that: women and their inextricably linked children and teens are somehow expendable."

"We believe," added Dr. Tascoe, "that a pervasive failure to effectively address societal issues from a balanced gender perspective that incorporates the voice of women, accounts for the reproduction of roles, programs, and conflict, that not only accentuate disparities between the sexes, but guarantee sub-optimal outcomes, whether we are building economies, sovereignties, health care systems, or peace and security."

Valerie Roe, Professor of Midwifery at SUNY, and Ramona Tascoe, MD, Chair of the International and Women's Health Sections of the National Medical Association

Also addressing the three-day symposium were Débora Tajer, South American Coordinator of the Latin American Association of Social Medicine (ALAMES) and its Gender Network; Valora Washington, PhD, Executive Director of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee; Kelley Phillips, MD, and Justina Trott, MD, President and President-elect of the American College
of Women's Health Physicians (see MEDICC Links); Dr. Yara Delgado of Seattle; Dr. Janis Jenkins of Case Western Reserve University; and Dawn Miller, MEDICC alumnus and student at Case Western, among many others.

Yara Delgado, delegate from Seattle, debates a point at the symposium. At her left, Eddie Olivera, also of Seattle

For U.S. delegates and student participants in the MEDICC Student Diploma Program, the week was rounded out with a full schedule of field visits in both Havana and Santiago, which took them to places such as the National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX) and the AIDS-STD Community Education Program in Santiago.

Additional sponsors of the Symposium included the Federation of Cuban Women, the Cuban Ministry of Public Health, PAHO/WHO, the UN Population Fund, Puentes Cubanos, the American College of Women's Health Physicians, the Foundation for Women's Health and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.


U.S. delegates were received by students at an after-school workshop on HIV/AIDS prevention in Santiago de Cuba. "Protect your Hopes" is the theme of the poster, designed in Santiago.