• Submitted by: manso
• Society
• 01 / 27 / 2011

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Wausau Daily Herald • January 27, 2011. When Dr. Dagoberto Riveron took his family out of Cuba in 1962, he knew he would never practice medicine in the country where he trained and treated patients for years.

But nearly five decades later, his youngest son, Dr. Fernando Riveron, a Wausau heart surgeon, is about to make history.

When Fernando returns to Cuba in February, he will assist Cuban doctors in a heart surgery. Fernando believes he is the first American surgeon to work in a Cuban hospital since the revolution in the 1950s, he said.

"I'm completely honored," he said, sitting in his office at Aspirus Wausau Hospital, where a picture of his father adorns the wall and a Cuban travel guidebook sits on his desk. "I feel almost insufficient. Why me? They should be picking some great surgeon from the United States. This is happening because I made contact with them."

Riveron, now 54, first returned to Cuba four years ago as a tourist, traveling as a freelance journalist to gain access to the country. He wrote articles about his first trip and will do the same when he returns from his upcoming one-week stay in Cuba.

During his first visit, Riveron visited his old neighborhood. He searched for the home where he and his older brother Ricardo stood on a porch and watched artillery shells explode in the sky and a fighter jet crash during the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.

He saw the countryside and immersed himself in the country's beautiful Spanish-style architecture and culture.

But in between days of touring Cuba and nights in its capital, Havana, Riveron had the chance to visit a Cuban hospital.

Inside the 15-story building that once housed a bank, Riveron got a firsthand look at Cuba's state-of-the-art health care.

Inside the hospital, Riveron saw a 64-slice CT scanner, something he had never seen in the U.S. at the time, and met several Cuban doctors, including the hospital's head heart surgeon.

"(The hospital) looks like a third world," he said. "But on closer inspection, the operating rooms were world class, and they have spent an incredible amount of their very scarce resources in revving up heart care. They really are trying to establish health care as not third world, but first world."

Riveron, retaining a deep interest in Cuba, remained in touch with the heart surgeon, e-mailing regularly and discussing the potential to exchange ideas.

The American Red Cross

When Riveron returns in late February, he'll assist in an open-heart surgery and give a speech to surgeons from throughout Cuba. For the veteran surgeon, it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but one that will be miles away from his comfort zone.

"It's something I'm good at, but right, you're doing it in a venue where you're off balance," he said. "But that's the thrill."

Cuban health care

Despite being entrenched in poverty, Cuba has a health care system that is on par with many first-world nations, Riveron said.

The Cuban government, for years, has provided premiere education and training to more doctors than it needs. The reason? It sends its abundance of doctors to other countries, including Venezuela and Honduras, countries in need of well-trained physicians. In return, the Cuban government gets a chunk of money, Riveron said.

Riveron said he was shocked when he witnessed Cuba's health care system in action. For instance, the country's surgeons perform heart transplants, a very high-tech procedure.

"That's really been a focus for them, to be as good as or better than the United States," Riveron said.

Common in the U.S.

"I've got to learn a lot of Spanish in a month," he joked.

For this trip, his brother, Dr. Ricardo Riveron, will accompany him. But Ricardo won't participate in the medical discussions.

For Ricardo, his first return to Cuba in 51 years will be filled with visits to his former neighborhood and other destinations outside of the hospital.

"It seems silly, but the kind of things you want to see is whether the house you remember being there is still there," said Ricardo, 56, an emergency room doctor in Toledo, Ohio.

But Fernando, who also plans to spend time seeing the country, hopes to learn more about how Cuba operates it's health care system, including its methods of delivering preventive care.

"How do they do it?" he said. "I'd love to understand that."

Dagoberto died two years ago, having never returned to Cuba. Fernando spent hours sharing tales from his first trip, but knows his dad, who ultimately practiced as a family doctor in Chicago, would be blown away by his upcoming trip.

"I think he would be pretty shocked that I would go down there and give a lecture in medicine 50 years later," Riveron said.

Source: www.wausaudailyherald.com/article/20110127/

By Jake Miller •

Source: Wausau Daily Herald