ELAM is a university centre in Venezuela dedicated to medical training which was created in 2006. The first 8,400 community doctors from ELAM will graduate in December to serve in some of Venezuela’s most deprived communities.
The centre’s aim is to produce doctors who know how to best benefit communities; by practicing their profession from a humanist and compassionate perspective, in line with the aims of the Venezuelan revolution. In this way the government can build on the social progress achieved through ‘Mission Adentro’ in partnership with Cuban medical personnel, ensuring that it will continue within Venezuela and beyond.
Students at ELAM are currently taught a course called the ‘Domestic Training Program of Comprehensive Community Medicine’ (PNF-MIC). The program coordinator, Carlos Ramírez stated in May 2011 that enrolment had hit a new high with 24,962 students currently taking the PNF-MIC. Students from Venezuela are joined by colleagues from Cuba, Martinica, other American countries and 20 African countries, thanks to an agreement endorsed within the framework of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA).
The key difference between the PNF-MICs and traditional Venezuelan university teaching is the comprehensive nature of the training that students receive. The PNF-MIC includes a 3-month introductory course on biology, chemistry, maths and socio-politics. After this introductory course, students strengthen their scientific, technical and social skills for six years.
The doctors are trained not just to provide care from a medical perspective, but to relate to their patients’ basic human needs. In this way illnesses can be treated holistically, taking into consideration factors such as nutrition and the familial living situation - 80% of the illnesses that are treated in the world’s health centres require this kind of primary care.
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