Happy and grateful for the quality training received at the Universidad Austral de Chile, UACh. This is how the 4 doctors who graduated from the Specialization Program in Internal Medicine feel, who yesterday successfully took their qualification exams and are now preparing to join the regional health network.
About her experience, Alejandra Kutscher Monckeberg said that “I chose Valdivia because I worked in Panguipulli. She referred patients to the hospital and had regular contact with specialists and subspecialists in Valdivia. Furthermore, I was motivated by the prestige of the Universidad Austral de Chile and this entire experience has been very positive.” The new specialist, who is the granddaughter of the renowned Chilean doctor Fernando Monckeberg, is from Santiago and will stay in the Los Ríos region.
His specialty colleague, Jorge Cerda, trained as a general practitioner at the UACh. “I always wanted internal medicine, I always liked it. It has very good teachers and a high standard of training and I am very happy to have done my scholarship here, with very good classmates and excellent teachers, with experience in all areas of specialties, which allows me to grow, learn and advance.”
In turn, Diego Álvarez remarked that “I am from Temuco and I was a zone general in several places. One of them was in Lanco, where I met an internist who trained here and had told me what this university is like and I liked it. I chose it because internal medicine is accredited here, which does not happen in all universities.”
Eduardo Schulz also successfully took his certification exam. Along with highlighting the teaching quality, he commented that he chose this specialization because “internal medicine is the area in which I feel most comfortable, and in which I feel that I will be able to contribute in a better way to the community. My dream is to remain in the city that formed me, contribute not only as a doctor to the region, but also as a teacher, and transmit knowledge to future generations.”
Quality teaching
The Specialization Program in Internal Medicine of the Graduate School of the Faculty of Medicine is directed by Dr. Leopoldo Ardiles, internist and nephrologist, who is also the promoter of the accreditation of the UACh as a Regional Training Center for Latin America of the International Society of Nephrology, «one of the few 28 centers recognized worldwide for the training of nephrological human resources. This is important because it is a recognition of a team and the teaching-care agreement with the Valdivia hospital that has achieved important successes in medicine and health.” This achieved prestige generates the motivation of young people who come from various regions of Chile, and now from other countries, to continue their training at the UACh.
In this sense, Dr. Ardiles stressed that internal medicine is the basis of the subspecialty in nephrology and its integration with other medical specialties allows for postgraduate research and teaching that transcends undergraduate clinical education in medicine and other disciplines of the Health Sciences. “We are a referral center for renal histopathology for the entire country. We maintain Valdivia as a center of development in nephrology and kidney transplantation, a reference in decentralization, for the benefit of the community that lives in the regions.”
