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City Press reports that new research among SA medical students who were trained in Cuba show that they feel intimidated, stigmatised and carrying an ever-present fear of rejection from the very environments in which they were trained to be of value.
Dr Buhle Maud Donda of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) was recently awarded a PhD for her thesis on the experiences of SA’s medical students who studied in Cuba for five years as part of a bilateral training agreement between the two countries. Donda explored the experiences of these students when they returned to their home institutions to continue their medical training. What she discovered revealed the many biases these students have to deal with and the emotional distress to which they were subjected. The students arrive back and go to work in the nine medical schools around the country. Then, for 18 months – after five years of studying in Spanish – they are reoriented to English medical terminology and acquainted with SA’s treatment-focused medical approach, as opposed to the preventive healthcare approach they are taught in Cuba. Given this situation, Donda said she learned that some of the struggles the students faced were not so much academic as emotional, affecting their interpersonal relationships and daily experiences in their classes. “They felt they were being stigmatised and discriminated against at the medical schools in which they were now having to find their feet. This happened to such an extent that they were beginning to feel intimidated. They were scared of people, scared of places, and were overwhelmed by fear,” she reported.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Vuyo Mkize at City Press (paywall access only)
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