Semblanza del Profesor Dr. Hernán Alessandri R / Biographical notes on Professor Hernan Alessandri, MD

Hernán Alessandri, a renowned Chilean medical educator, was born in Santiago in 1900. He received his medical degree at the University of Chile in 1923. When in 1927 his father, then President of Chile, was sent into exile, he used the opportunity to deepen his medical knowledge in France and Germany. At the University of Chile, he became successively Professor of Clinical Medicine (1932), of Medical Semiology (1937), and Full Professor and Chair of Medicine (1944). At the Hospital del Salvador in Santiago, he organized a Clinical Department exemplary for its discipline, academic environment and dedication to patients and students. He was one of the prime movers for the reform of medical teaching in 1943, created medical residency programs for the training of specialists in 1952, served as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine from 1958 to 1962, and was a founding member of the Chilean Academy of Medicine (1964). He was the first Latin American to be named Honorary Member of the American College of Physicians (1968) and became Emeritus Professor of the University of Chile in 1973. He died in his hometown in 1982. His disciples and friends established in his honor a social and teaching foundation which they named after him. His clinical and diagnostic skills, along with his outstanding intelligence, made him the most brilliant clinician of his time and an exceptional medical educator who has inspired several generations of physicians. (AU)

Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad de Chile: 170 años al servicio de país / The university of Chile school of medicine: an educational institution serving the country for over 170 years

The first course on Medical Sciences in Chile was inaugurated in 1833, being its director William C Blest, MD, an Irish physician graduated in Edinburgh University. Therefore, Dr. Blest can be considered the founder of Chilean formal medical education. When the University of Chile was established (in 1842), among its five initial Faculties was included Medicine, on the basis of the Medical Sciences course created ten years before. By then, the medical profession was not yet socially reputed and the initial years of the Faculty were difficult. During the 19th Century and until the second decade of the 20th century, this was the only medical school in the country. Its development was slow but sustained, reaching its apogee in the middle of the 20th Century, when it had outstanding clinical and basic sciences teachers and investigators. Clinical research, postgraduate teaching and medical specialization had a great development during that period. Nowadays, it is a complex Faculty that teaches eight health sciences courses leading to different professional titles, gives higher academic degrees in biomedicine and public health and certifies different medical specialties. It has a modern, well equipped library and a unique Museum of Medicine. Besides the traditional Departments in Medical Faculties, it has Departments of Medical Teaching, Bioethics and Medical Humanities. It provides continuing medical education programs and distance teaching has recently experienced a great development. The community is also favored with specific teaching programs. The academic promotion of its faculty members is based in a strict evaluation. During its existence, the Faculty has graduated a large number of physicians and other health care professionals. Our country should be grateful to the University of Chile Faculty of Medicine, in its 170th birthday, for its outstanding contribution to the development, welfare and happiness of Chilean society

Seminario sobre formación de médicos en la actualidad en Chile / Medical training in Chile at the present time

The Chilean Academy of Medicine is concerned about the significant increment in the number of Medical Schools in Chile, from six in 1981 to 16 in 2002. All these Schools were invited to participate in a seminar about medical training. Eleven Schools are private and 5 are public (3 private Schools are subsidized by the state). There are nine Medical Schools in Santiago and 7 in other regions. The students admission criteria varies from one school to another. One thousand one hundred twenty two students are admitted to these Schools each year. Clinical hospitals, urban and rural outpatient clinics are used as training fields. These pertain to the Ministry of Health, Universities, Armed Forces, Private Clinics and City Halls. The main recommendations of the seminar were: to promote an early contact of students with clinical problems and to analyze these problems from the perspective of basic sciences; to enhance semiological, clinical and physiopathological training; to increase the contact with outpatients; to favor health promotion and preventive activities; to educate professors in ethical and humanistic issues; to regulate the use of clinical campus and reinforce the formation of specialists in family medicine, internal medicine and pediatrics. The accreditation of Medical Schools and clinical training centers was recommended. The establishment of a national medical examination for Chilean and foreign graduates, was proposed. The Academy of Medicine is interested in assuring a good quality medical training and to avoid teaching activities in unqualified schools and hospitals

La revista médica de Chile y la educación en medicina / Revista médica de Chile and medical education

With this issue, Revista Médica de Chile will have been published uninterruptedly, for 130 years. Formal medical education had an early development since Chile became independent from Spain (1817). The first Medical Sciences Course was organized in 1833 by the Irish physician William C Blest. The Santiago Medical Society was founded in 1869 and its journal -Revista Médica de Chile- in 1872. Its first director was Dr. German Schneider. Revista Medica is the oldest serial publication in South America and the second oldest in the Spanish speaking world. This is a remarkable fact for a comparatively young country. With the creation of the Medical Society and Revista Medica, a process of continuous medical education was started and they became a real Graduate School. The Journal has adopted the main changes in knowledge and technology. Some important milestones of its development, during the second half of the 20th century, were the definition of its objectives and structure, the incorporation of peer review of manuscripts (even with foreign reviewers) the adoption of international guidelines for publication, its incorporation into the main biomedical journal indexes, the modernization of its printing process, the making of a computer generated index of all papers published since 1872, its incorporation into a digital library in INTERNET and the active participation of its editors in the World Association of Medical Journal Editors. The success of the journal is influenced by the independence that the Medical Society has conferred to the editors (all outstanding University Professors), as well as to the characteristics of an educational campus "invisible and without tumult" (Ingelfinger)

La revista médica de Chile y la educación en medicina / Revista médica de Chile and medical education

With this issue, Revista Médica de Chile will have been published uninterruptedly, for 130 years. Formal medical education had an early development since Chile became independent from Spain (1817). The first Medical Sciences Course was organized in 1833 by the Irish physician William C Blest. The Santiago Medical Society was founded in 1869 and its journal -Revista Médica de Chile- in 1872. Its first director was Dr. German Schneider. Revista Medica is the oldest serial publication in South America and the second oldest in the Spanish speaking world. This is a remarkable fact for a comparatively young country. With the creation of the Medical Society and Revista Medica, a process of continuous medical education was started and they became a real Graduate School. The Journal has adopted the main changes in knowledge and technology. Some important milestones of its development, during the second half of the 20th century, were the definition of its objectives and structure, the incorporation of peer review of manuscripts (even with foreign reviewers) the adoption of international guidelines for publication, its incorporation into the main biomedical journal indexes, the modernization of its printing process, the making of a computer generated index of all papers published since 1872, its incorporation into a digital library in INTERNET and the active participation of its editors in the World Association of Medical Journal Editors. The success of the journal is influenced by the independence that the Medical Society has conferred to the editors (all outstanding University Professors), as well as to the characteristics of an educational campus "invisible and without tumult" (Ingelfinger) (AU)

Pedro Laín Entralgo, médico y humanista / Pedro Laín Entralgo, physician and humanist

This speech of the president of the Chilean Academy of Medicine, Dr Alejandro Goic, is a tribute to the memory of the Spanish physician, scholer, historian, writer and intellectual Dr. Pedro La'n Entralgo, who died in Madrid on June 4, 2001, at the age of 93. On that occasion, the Spanish newspaper "El Pais" defined him as the last humanist. The Spanish civil war started when La'n was 28 years old and he aligned with Franco's supporters. In 1940, when he founded the magazine "El Escorial", he was separated from the official party. He and other intellectuals declared themselves in an "interior exile". His autobiographical book, "Lightening the burden on the conscience" refers to his painful personal history. He obtained the History of Medicine chair, at the Complutense University, at the age of 34 and remained at that post until his retirement in 1978. His intellectual production is magnificent and calls to a mutual understanding, hope, friendship and love. Outstanding, among others, are his books "The wait and hope", "Theory and reality of the other", "Spain as a problem", "Medicine and history", "The clinical history", "Patient physician relationship", "Medical anthropology". He directed the collective work composed of seven volumes, called "Universal History of Medicine". He was a member of the Royal Academies for Language, History and Medicine. In Chile, he was named honorary member of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile and of the Academies of Language, History and Medicine. He dictated a course of Medical Anthropology that had a profound impact on the thought of Chilean physicians. In 1949 he wrote that Chile was the most solid state of Latin America and that "Chile needs to leave his traditional calm, through a historical gesture, and create the river beds required by his magnificent spiritual and geographical gifts. There is a lack of a beautiful craziness". It was an invocation for an understanding with our neighboring countries "for ever and ever"