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 EchavarrĂ­a, 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

Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: José Martí Today, Jesús Colón, 1961
29 April 2026
“Fidel Castro, the heir of José Martí is certainly throwing all colonial concepts and attitudes in history’s ash can.”
A. J. Horn
Cuba Beyond the One-Party Myth
29 April 2026
Rethinking Cuba's political system as a model of participatory democracy.
Jill Clark-Gollub
Growing Calls to End Unilateral Coercive Measures
29 April 2026
The United States has made economic coercive measures, sanctions, its primary foreign policy tool, committing war by other means with a compara
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: The Class War in Cuba, Julio Antonio Mella, 1926
22 April 2026
“This pamphlet is a response to the bloody offensive by our tyrant and his master –Yankee capitalist imperialism.”
Sam E Anderson
Beyond the Algorithm: Defending the Cuban Revolution’s Record Against Ahistorical Attacks
22 April 2026
A critical analysis of ongoing social media warfare against Cuba and the global African response to a revolution under criminal siege.
Resumen English
All with Cuba: Stand Against the Threat of Imperialist Aggression in April
15 April 2026
Condemnation of the U.S.
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: Is the US Anti-Caribbean? How to overcome it then, Tim Hector, 1997
08 April 2026
“...it is like a knee-jerk reaction in the U.S – this consistent, insistent and persistent anti-Caribbean policy in the U.S.
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
A Weak Left Stands By as Russia Stands Up for Cuban Sovereignty
01 April 2026
Russia finally makes good on promises to help Cuba, but its level of commitment is unclear.
Isaac Saney , James Count Early
Democracy Under Siege: Popular Participation and Socialist Renewal in Cuba in a Time of Crisis
01 April 2026
While Western democracies exclude working people from economic decision-making, Cuba is expanding participatory governance to navigate its deep
Josué Veloz Serrade
Cuba at the Crossroads of a Bogus Multilateralism
25 March 2026
“Cuba en la encrucijada de un multilateralismo hipócrita,” by Josué Veloz Serrade, appeared on

More Stories


  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist , ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    White Power, White Decedance, White Denial: A Dialog with Ajamu Baraka
    22 Apr 2026
    Ajamu Baraka and Margaret Kimberley discuss how the assault on Iran exposed the pathological nature of white power, the cynical games of the duopoly, and a new campaign to move the World Cup out of…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: The Class War in Cuba, Julio Antonio Mella, 1926
    22 Apr 2026
    “This pamphlet is a response to the bloody offensive by our tyrant and his master –Yankee capitalist imperialism.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Blackshirts and Reds, the Profound and Persistent Class Analysis of Dr. Michael Parenti
    22 Apr 2026
    On Saturday, April 25th a memorial service will be held in Berkeley, California for Dr. Michael Parenti, radical historian, social scientist, author, and public speaker. There will be a…
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    On the Eve of an International Fossil Fuels Conference, Afro-Descendants Ask How Black Lives can Matter Without Acknowledging their Existence?
    22 Apr 2026
    Afro-descendant organizers are being erased from a fossil fuels conference before the event even begins.
  • Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Jarvis C. McInnis’s Book, “Afterlives of the Plantation”
    22 Apr 2026
    This week’s featured author is Jarvis C. McInnis. McInnis is the Cordelia and William Laverack Family Assistant Professor of English at Duke University. His book is Afterlives of the…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us