Students of Medical Sciences in Cuba, pillar of primary health care

HAVANA, Cuba, Mar 18 (ACN) In a year of confronting the COVID-19 pandemic, students of the Universities of Medical Sciences throughout the country have played an important role, based on the concept of learning from work, which contributes positively to their academic training.

For doctor and professor Jorge Gonzalez Perez, national director of Medical Teaching of the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP by its Spanish acronym), the work scenario in this type of courses is also that of training, which marks a difference with the rest, and that is that it can be taken directly to the foundation, that is to say, to the municipalities, and kept up in adverse times.

He emphasized that since March 2020 the students have participated in active screening (Integral Community Work) from the Primary Health Care, for the early detection of possible cases with respiratory symptoms and in particular with suspicion of suffering from COVID-19.

The expert highlighted that more than 50, 000 students and 6, 000 professors of Medical Sciences from all over Cuba have joined the active screening, which contributed decisively to contain the transmission in most of the national territory in mid-August.

It is important to underline the incorporation of 950 young people to work in isolation centers and red zones, Gonzalez Perez stressed.

The specialist explained that in September, when the school year in Medical Sciences restarted for continuing medical education, and most of the provinces were in the recovery phase, the students were kept in screening, according to the needs of each territory.

Likewise, in mid-January 2021, when the epidemiological situation in a large part of the nation has regressed, they will be incorporated on a massive scale.

Similarly, Gonzalez Perez stated that the infrastructure designed for medical education has made it possible for student residences, now empty due to the students' involvement in their communities, to be used as field hospitals or isolation centers.

In turn, the universities of Medical Sciences have had a meritorious role, since before the outbreak of COVID-19, in the training of professionals, from students, specialists from different health institutions, researchers, especially those of the new molecular biology laboratories, and collaborators of the medical brigades abroad and, through them, the Cuban personnel in missions abroad.