The View from the Top

So on the workblog, you have already heard that this was the day of our talk, which went well, and generated lots of interest from the folks who heard it. Ironically, you may be reading this after I have returned home-turns out that the hotel is out of  Wireless Cards and doesn’t know when they will get them in again. So, I will save things to the hard drive and upload them when I return.
After a full morning of meeting, I really wanted to visit the ELAM, the Medical School of Latin America and was fortunate that some folks cancelled at the last minute and I was able to get on the bus to see the place. It is west of Havana, actually outside of the City Limits- we passed a police checkpoint along the way. I sat on the bus with Valerie and struck up a conversation with a student from Virginia, an enthusiastic African-American woman who was really enjoying her experience so far in this environment. She told us that students really had little access to Havana; some trips, but most of their off campus activities were focused in a small town just west of campus. Their curriculum included a substantial bit of work in the social sciences- history, English, literature, political economy (a concept rarely mentioned in the US) and physical education (mandatory), and focuses on creating doctors with social engagement. That on top of the same sciences and skill based learning that we use. No wonder it takes 6 years. The campus is big and new- we were greeted by representative of each “delegation” in costume and flag, and ushered into an auditorium for video and speeches, with singing and dancing and a reception in the hall in which they display the gifts sent by the various family to the school in thanks for the free medical education. The underlying theme of all of their education is that the practice medicine is a social good, and that the practictioner is obliged to bring that “good” back to their roots, to the community from which they came. They claim a very high rate of success in placing doctors in underserved communities, although it is early and it will be interesting to see if the doctors stay “down on the farm” once they have seen the wonders of the city.  Great idea; I wish that we could have dispensed with protocol, and visited some classes and laboratories. In this time and place, however, that is not the way in which it is done.After the tour, I met up with a group of folks in the lobby to got out eating . We ended up in La Torre, a restaurant high atop a tower, French and expensive ($30 for dinner, the most I have paid yet), with spectacular views of the city and fort. Our guide was was Rob Huish, a Canadian, who has been studying the development of ELAM and has visiting Cuba 16 times in the last 7 years, for up to 5 months at a time. He told us the story of the US Interest Section Scroll, blasting FOX news at the people and blocked by 100 flagpoles, arock concert stage and the statue of Jose Marti saving the children in response to Elian, and the Miami 5, imprisoned for espionage because they were spying on anti-Castro groups on US soil (the spying was there- but the target was not the US government- is that espionage?), and even the building in which we were eating (built 30 stories high without the benefit of a crane and considered to be an ugly marvel of civil engineering, but formerly occupied by nests of vultures) . Great dinner, great conversation, great views (and a really nice Chilean shiraz).
And so it goes. I’m hoping to spend some of my last day in Old Havana, and so must go now. See you on my return.