After the University of Medical Sciences of Holguin (UCMHo) together with the Pediatric Hospital Octavio de la Concepción de la Pedraja decided to start the training specialists in Speech Therapy and Phoniatrics three years ago, today is a fact the first graduation of two residents of the specialty, after the culmination of the residency on this specialty, after the completion of their exercises and state graduation exams.
In this sense, Dr. Mailén Londres Serrano, one of the two graduates, explains that “after assuming the fact that the specialty would be done in the province and facing challenges and difficulties along three years of the residency, precisely because we were the first one here and therefore did has no previous experience in our province, this achievement has been a source of immense pride.
“Today we can forget to mention our three main teachers Rosángeles Suárez, Yarelis Garrandés and Elsa Calzadilla, who with all the love, affection, dedication and experience in the practice of the profession transmitted us their knowledge to make possible our training as logophoniatrists.
Therefore, this achievement is also theirs, and this experience, at the same time that it is unforgettable, constitutes a commitment to continue with them in this beautiful work that the specialty has ahead”, she added.
Although previously the specialty of Speech Therapy and Phoniatrics was trained in Havana, the limitations of geographical distance prevented the presence of a greater number of specialists in this northeastern territory.
Although such a decision implied a challenge for the house of higher studies of health sciences in Holguin and, in particular, for the pediatric institution, main seat of the training of this specialty, it was assumed and accepted.
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Part of the faculty together with the first two Speech Therapy and Phoniatrics specialists graduated in Holguin. Photo: Teaching Pediatric Hospital of Holguin.
According to the Head of the Teaching and Research Department of the Pediatric Hospital, Aracelis Hernández García, “it was a huge challenge for the teaching staff, who with the wisdom and support of the UCMHo carried out all the planning, the calendar plans and the different preparations for the teachers, who in the same way were facing this task for the first time in here. Thanks to this, we proudly got to graduate the first two students on this study program, which is an achievement by contributing to the strengthening of the specialty in the province, with coverage for the entire territory”.
The achievement of this goal is not a product of chance; behind this result is the joint effort of the teaching staff that undertook the titanic task.
About this experience, the main teacher and specialist of first degree in Logopedia, Rosángeles Suárez, explains that “on a professional level it was a challenge, because despite having a teaching category, carrying out the program of a specialty implies a greater effort. At that moment you start to think about all those people who were your teachers, whom you consider excellent professionals and who run the national program with so many years of experience, and who have been working with you for so many years.
“When you’re given an assignment like that you wonder if you’ll be able to do it similar to them. That implied organizing everything as similar as possible to our training, but in another context, with other needs, especially in terms of human resources. And you have to grow as a professional, because it’s up to us to make sure everything goes well.
That is the challenge. This forces you to learn and improve yourself at the same time as you train new specialists, in order to obtain the best results.
This forces you to learn and improve yourself at the same time that you are training new specialists, to obtain a fruit of excellence as I believe we achieved, being the graduated specialists a strength in our specialty”.
Thus, having a greater number of professionals in Speech Therapy and Phoniatrics offers unquestionable advantages, among them the fact that they will be part of multidisciplinary teams in several health programs that until now were not fully developed, while making possible the care of a greater number of people with oral communication disorders and will be part of the faculty responsible for the training of new generations.
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