socialized medicine and tcm in Cuba/response to shadjody's post

[Guest guest]

Shad and everyone,

 

Thank you for posting this. I read an article about American's going

to Cuba to attend medical school because the education is free. I'll

have to dig through my archives to find it. And I hope you don't

mind, but I forwarded your post to my alumni group (I deleted your

contact information and name for privacy, of course) and someone

replied by send an article about TCM in Cuba by Harriet Beinfield.

It's a pdf file and I uploaded to the " articles " file. Thanks again

for sharing your insights and experience.

 

Lisa

 

Chinese Medicine , shadjody wrote:

>

> HI

> I only know about Cuba. I have spent a lot of time there doing the

> equivalent of CE courses for MD's. There's not much in Sicko or

Salud! (the new film

> specifically on Cuban Health system) on Chinese Medicine but it's an

> integral part of the system . In the 90's I would go to Cuba and

say I was

> " Acupunctura " to people on the street and they would totally know

what I did.

>

> You have to be an MD there to practice but every MD has an

introduction to

> TCM , as well as Homeopathy, Bach Flowers and Cuban Flower Essences

as part of

> their medical training. You learn 50-100 of the basic points as

part of

> A & P. You study Cuban Herbal Medicine as part of your Pharmacology

class. Then

> you do a quarter of " Natural and Traditional Medicine " . After you

graduate

> and serve 1-2 years of Family Practice, you choose your residency.

One of the

> standard residency options is either a 1 or 3 year residency in

NTM. There are

> 4-5 Med. schools on the island that offer that program. There are NTM

> clinics in most of the hospitals and about a dozen clinics that

only offer NTM

> including one that is an inpatient hospital.

>

> The most common TCM practice I saw there was Auricular Therapy.

Until you

> get to the residency program it's pretty much a standard cook book

> acupuncture. But some of the residents are well trained. Some of

them are sent to

> China, Vietnam and Korea to study.

>

> They sterilize and reuse acupuncture needles, but boy are they

dull. They

> don't have access to anything from the US (books, needles,

supplies) because

> the US government won't allow them to be sold. (the " great " US

Embargo, of

> course you can by coca cola there) They have the equivalent of the

first yr

> TCM textbook that we use here, but not much beyond that. Of course

that

> depends on how hooked in to the tourist scene and vacationers that

bring supplies

> and textbooks down. For instance the TCM inpatient hospital

library was 1-2

> sections of metal shelves for all the books an NTM.

>

> By the way it's legal for a full time US acupuncturist to go to Cuba

without

> government approval as long as you are doing " research on NTM " and

do a

> presentation or write a paper on it when you come back to the US.

>

> Shad Reinstein MAc.

>

>

>

> ************************************** See what's free at

http://www.aol.com.

>

>

>