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

What a terrific book! I have been researching Cuban medical internationalism for several years, and found Steve Brouwer’s book an excellent, insightful first-person account of how Cuban medical cooperation (and not aid!) is changing the face of the developing world.

—John Kirk, Professor of Latin American Studies, Dalhousie University, Canada; author, Cuban Medical Internationalism: Origins, Evolution, and Goals

The Cuban medical education model, so eloquently described in this book, has not merely transformed health care in much of Central and South America. It has shown doctors and medical students who work in the unjust and dysfunctional U.S. health care system that another world is possible.

—Steffie Woolhandler, MD, MPH; professor of public health, CUNY; visiting professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School

Venezuela and Cuba clearly show that the basic human right of access to medical and health care in time of need is not dependent on the level of economic development. Venezuela and Cuba are not rich countries yet, and in spite of this, health care reaches the majority of their populations. They should be considered points of reference for poor countries that want to break with the underdevelopment of health. This book is a rigorous and balanced account of how they did it.

—Vicente Navarro, MD, PhD; professor of health policy, The Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University; editor-in-chief, International Journal of Health Services

Revolutionary Doctors tells the story of Cuba’s extraordinary medical personnel who leave their homes and families to support radical struggles for health care abroad. And it shows how this struggle is taken up in places like Venezuela, where poor communities are organizing to provide health care from the ground up. This is a story that deserves to be known.

—Sujatha Fernandes, assistant professor of sociology, Queens College and CUNY Graduate Center; author, Who Can Stop the Drums? Urban Social Movements in Chávez’s Venezuela

Steve Brouwer is one of the nation’s best front-line reporters from the ongoing class war.

—Barbara Ehrenreich, author, Nickel and Dimed