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All inquiries can be forwarded to Isabel Chen | isabel.chen23@gmail.com
There is growing recognition that medical education needs to better prepare future physicians to be socially responsive in order to improve health outcomes. Medical schools are increasingly aware of the significant shortcomings in ways doctors are educated about the social contract between medicine and society. Cuba, however, is an excellent example of educational reforms that has led to remarkable health outcomes and reductions in health disparities. This research aims to compare and contrast the countries’ respective ways in which their medical curricula teach physician social accountability.

The project took place over the summer of 2012 in Santa Clara, Cuba. We participated in a medical exchange with the Instituto Superior de Ciencias Medicas to learn about the structure and function of the primary health care system. Interviews were conducted with various medical professors and epidemiologists. The inaugural international medical student colloquium was a 1-day event, co-sponsored by medical students from the University of British Columbia, Institutio Superior de Ciencias Medicas, Universidad Veracruzana and Yale School of Medicine. Discussion will include presentations and focus groups on the teaching of physician advocacy and public health in medical education.

Over the three-week medical exchange and throughout the colloquium, it became clear that development of physician social accountability is highly complex. Significant factors that vary between educational systems and have overt and subconscious influences on physician advocacy include: pre-medical requirements, admissions process, medical curriculum including philosophy, ethics, and rural service rotations, cost of attendance, overall student indebtedness, earning potential, and societal views and expectations of physicians.