Revolutionary Doctors: How Venezuela and Cuba Are Changing the World’s Conception of Health Care

Abstract

Revolutionary Doctors gives readers a first-hand account of Venezuela's innovative and inspiring program of community health care, designed to serve-and largely carried out by-the poor themselves. Drawing on long-term participant observations as well as in-depth research, Brouwer tells the story of Venezuela's Integral Community Medicine program, in which doctor-teachers move into the countryside and poor urban areas to recruit and train doctors from among peasants and workers. Such programs were first developed in Cuba, and Cuban medical personnel play a key role in Venezuela today as advisors and organizers. This internationalist model has been a great success-Cuba is a world leader in medicine and medical training-and Brouwer shows how the Venezuelans are now, with the aid of their Cuban counterparts, following suit. But this program is not without its challenges. It has faced much hostility from traditional Venezuelan doctors as well as all the forces antagonistic to the Venezuelan and Cuban revolutions. Despite the obstacles it describes, Revolutionary Doctors demonstrates how a society committed to the well-being of its poorest people can actually put that commitment into practice, by delivering essential health care through the direct empowerment of the people it aims to serve.

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