HAVANA — We’re either seeing the unfolding of a miracle for a group of low-income Americans, or else we are witnessing their shameless exploitation. The three dozen U.S. students at the Latin American School of Medicine either have grasped an offer they couldn’t refuse or become victims of a bait-and-switch game. They will shortly be practicing physicians, or they will find their dreams of bringing health to their low-income communities are not to be.
Point of view, one keeps learning, is everything.
Even the students themselves can’t be absolutely certain. They are here in response to an invitation made by President Fidel Castro through the Congressional Black Caucus two years ago. Castro offered free training — including tuition, books, food and lodging — for as many as 500 Americans from poor communities, requiring only that they furnish their own air fare to Cuba and agree to return to their communities to practice.
So far, about three dozen young Americans — mostly from the Northeast — have taken him up on it, joining the approximately 4,000 foreign medical students already studying here for free. Some of the Americans are more or less straight out of high school, while some already hold undergraduate degrees. One enrolled after a year at Howard University’s Law School. But all seem confident they will survive the rigorous language and scientific training and become full-fledged doctors.
Others in my party of visitors (I’m traveling with members of the Howard University Medical Association) are less sanguine. "No way they’re ever going to be certified by American boards," one veteran American physician tells me. "We have no way of judging the quality of the training they will get. They’ll most likely turn out to be medical assistants."
For some among them, matriculation at the medical school represents the renewal of a dream long ago put on hold. Mayla Manning, 22, of New York was so sure she’d been priced out of a medical education that she went and earned a business degree. It was much the same with Wesley LaPommeray, whose undergrad degree is in history.
Simon Huleatt, 20, a high-school graduate from Newburgh, N.Y., says he "hadn’t really thought" of med school — the costs putting it out of his dreaming range — until he heard about Castro’s offer. He expects six years from now to return as a physician to serve his Bruderhof community.
Conversational snatches with several of the American students — there was no opportunity for full interviews — reveal a group of idealistic youngsters who see a medical career not as an economic opportunity but as an opportunity to serve. That humanitarian approach seems to be the guiding philosophy of the Latin American School — and of course its patron, Castro.
The 75-year-old dictator has not only made it routine to send his state-trained physicians to every nook and cranny of Cuba but has dispatched thousands of them overseas — principally to Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa.
Critics, including the American Interests Section that substitutes for an embassy here, say the young Americans are suffering serious privations and are unable even to be in contact with their families in the States. The students themselves complain about the food (what student doesn’t?) and the absence of such niceties as toilet paper and toilet seats. But all I met — were they hand-picked? — say they plan to stick it out.
Are they being exploited for political purpose? Well, of course. So, one could say, are U.S. Peace Corps volunteers. It depends on your point of view.
Mine is that Castro is utterly serious about at least two accomplishments of his revolution: schooling and medical care available to virtually every Cuban. He won’t be distressed if his offer of free medical schooling embarrasses the U.S. government — or if it provides the basis for some sort of reciprocal action on our part.
The present state of affairs between our two countries serves no good purpose for us or for them.
William Raspberry can be reached at The Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071-9200 or willrasp@washpost.com.
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