Che Guevara: a Revolutionary's Medicine

In his brief 39 years on earth, Che Guevara made a name for himself through his political activism and revolutionary beliefs. Thanks to a well-timed photo by Alberto Korda, Guevara’s legacy stands the test of time in a way that some of his socialist comrades could only dream of. Due to his radical political notoriety, many forget that Guevara’s passion for the people began with public health. His beliefs about medical care shaped a legacy of social medicine in Latin America. Guevara’s impact on public health should not go unnoticed, as his life was intertwined with medicine since his birth.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara was born May 14th, 1928 in Rosario, Argentina, to Ernesto Guevara Lynch and Celia de la Serna (J. Anderson, 2010). He was born premature, though his parents falsified the record to claim he was born on June 14th instead. In addition, he grew up with terrible asthma; in 1932, his family moved to Alta Gracia in hopes of improving his health. They lived there until 1943 when they moved to Córdoba so Che could attend secondary school.

Growing up, the young Che was quick in the classroom and had a thirst for knowledge. His former rugby coach and later traveling companion, Alberto Granado, reported that Che often pulled out books during breaks at practice. As he grew older, Che invested his time in reading socialist literature. He also learned to care for his allergies, which later turned into an interest in medicine. In 1947, Che started attending medical school but left three years later. His basic understanding of health allowed him to care for himself during asthma attacks (Cueto & Palmer, 2015). He returned to school later on and received his medical degree in 1953. This gap in time accounts for his famous “Motorcycle Diaries” trip, a cross-continental journey he embarked on with Granado. Initially, Che used this trip to study populations living with leprosy, or Hansen’s disease (Henry, 2008). However, it was during this trip that he saw the truth of income inequality and racial disparities across Latin America. Combining this with his prior interest in socialist theory, Che started to formulate his thoughts on social medicine, or as he called it, “Revolutionary Medicine” (Waitzkin, 2001).

Much of Che’s impact on the realm of social medicine came in his late twenties and early thirties, with his involvement in Cuban politics. In 1955, Che met Fidel Castro, a young Cuban upstart fighting against the Batista regime (Henry, 2008). Castro recruited Che to the cause as his medical expert, though he later held other positions in the Cuban government. While in Cuba, Che used his near-celebrity status to lead the charge for revolutionizing medicine (Cueto & Palmer, 2015). During his time in the war, he wrote on the dynamic position of a “revolutionary doctor”, a role that forced him to be both a soldier and a medic (Guevara, 1998a). After leaving Cuba, Che went on to try and revolutionize other countries. One of these such countries was Bolivia, where he was executed in 1967 (Cueto & Palmer, 2015). The Bolivian government was being funded by the United States in an effort to quash communist upstarts in Latin America. Che died on October 9th in La Higuera, Bolivia, leaving the world with one less powerful voice for the people.

While there were other schools of thought surrounding social medicine in the mid-twentieth century, Che’s revolutionary medicine was the most radical. Like Salvador Allende and other social medicine activists, Che believed that health was a human right that all should have access to (Kirk, 2009). His writing focused on geography and politics of public health and disease. For Che, social medicine was thoroughly linked to socialist politics. According to the revolutionary, social medicine could only be achieved in a future with a socialist government (Gofin, 2006). Another policy focal point was the empowerment of the common people to spread medical expertise. In 1960, he gave a speech on the topic, declaring that the people of Cuba needed to work together to improve social welfare (Guevara, 1998b). That, in his mind, extended to the world of medicine. Che believed that the best way to de-privatize public health was to put it into the hands of the people (T. Anderson, 2010). With medical education, the new doctors could return to their communities and spread information.

Today, Che is best known through a photo taken by Alberto Korda. In 1960, Korda photographed Che while at a funeral for victims of a tragic bombing (Casey, 2009). This image of the young revolutionary has traveled worldwide and can be found on everything from posters to shirts. The stoic photo memorialized Che as a political icon, though one can only imagine what the rebel would say if he knew his image was turned into a capitalist commodity. However, much of his representation outside of the image focuses solely on his role as a revolutionary. Che experts are more likely to put emphasis on his actions as a socialist icon than a socialist doctor.

Despite a lack of academic focus, Che’s social medicine legacy lives on in name and in policy. Clinics and hospitals recognize his role as a doctor by taking his name; there’s the Centro de Salud "Dr. Ernesto Che Guevara" in Rosario, for example, that offers a number of health services for the residents of the city (Carter, 2012). His writing has inspired movements in Cuba, Chile, and Nicaragua (Porter, 2006). Years after he exited Cuba, the new Cuban healthcare system reflected his ideas about revolutionary medicine. The medical education system promoted the ideology that doctors have a duty to help their communities, no matter their economic status. Beyond Cuba, the Nicaraguan medical and educational reforms borrowed from his teachings; the reforms focused on maternal and child healthcare, though the system was still privatized then. The Chilean social medicine movement did as well, though it was more prominent during his lifetime. Guevara’s writing took on a larger role as a guiding framework for social medicine well past his death. Called the “Revolutionary Doctor”, his ideas have been built on by many Latin American scholars after him.

Che Guevara saw health discrepancies and fought against them. He used his voice to rally his followers to the cause. Today, many young Marxists look up to him as a figurehead of the revolution, putting aside the rest of his work. It is of this author’s opinion that this practice needs to come to a halt. Che Guevara’s writing on social medicine should be studied just as much as his writings on revolution, for discounting his role in the world of public health would be doing a disservice to his memory.

Related Articles:

• Latin American School of Medicine
• Leprosy (Hansen's Disease)
• Cuban Medical Internationalism
• Salvador Allende
• Social Medicine in Chile

References:

Anderson, J.L. (2010). Che: Revised Edition. New York, NY: Grove Press. Print.

Anderson, T. (2010). “Social Medicine in Timor Leste.” Social Medicine, 5(4), 182-191.

Carter, E. D. (2012). “Where’s Che? Politics, Pop Culture, and Public Memory in Rosario, Argentina”. American Geographical Society’s Focus on Geography, 55(1), 1–10.

Casey, M. (2009). Che’s Afterlife: The Legacy of an Image. New York, NY: Random House Inc. Print.

Cueto, M. & Palmer, S. (2015). Medicine and Public Health in Latin America: A History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Print.

Gofin, J. (2006). “On ‘A Practice of Social Medicine’ by Sidney and Emily Kark”. Social Medicine, 1(2), 107-115.

Guevara, E.C. (1998a). “El Médico en la Guerilla”. Cuaderno de Historia, 83.

Guevara, E.C. (1998b). “El Médico y la Revolución”. Cuaderno de Historia, 83.

Henry, G. K. (2008). “Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Doctor”. MD Magazine.

Kirk, J. M. (2009). “Cuba’s Medical Internationalism: Development and Rationale”. Bulletin of Latin American Research, 28(4), 497–511.

Porter, D. (2006). “How Did Social Medicine Evolve, and Where Is It Heading?”. PLoS Med 3(10), 1667-1672.

Waitzkin, H. (2001). “Social Medicine Then and Now: Lessons from Latin America”. American Journal of Public Health, 91(10), 1592-1601.