Teaching

• Diplomado Elaboración y abordaje de un protocolo de Investigación. Maestría en Salud Pública, Universidad de Ciencias y Artes del Estado de Chiapas, Junio 2019

• Metodología de la Investigación. Maestría en Ciencias de la Salud, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Marzo 2019.

• Seminarios de Tesis II. Profesor invitado, Maestría en Desarrollo Sustentable y Recurso Naturales, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), Unidad San Cristóbal, 2015, 2016, 2017.

• Capacitación al personal del Laboratorio Estatal de Salud Pública del Estado de Chiapas (LESP) para la creación de colecciones microbiológicas. El curso fue teórico y práctico con duración de cinco días. Julio 2015.

• The creation of Intercultural Medicine career: an innovative education program.

The state of Chiapas lies in the southeast of Mexico and extends over an area of 74,415 square kilometers. Its estimated population, for 2014, is 5,149, 319 inhabitants distributed in 122 municipalities (see Chiapas población). Chiapas is one of the poorest Mexican states whose majority of population lives in poverty. The state has important ethnographic, social, cultural, historical and socioeconomic characteristics. All these factors are combined and reflect poor health indicators such as: high maternal and child mortality, malnutrition, high prevalence of TB, lack or null access to health services. There is a shortage of health staff and this situation is worse in indigenous communities. There is 1.3 physicians per each 1,000 inhabitants. Furthermore, the existent staff have not been trained to work in this multicultural society. In terms of access of health services, only 56.78% of Chiapas population has access to it. Children are still dying due to curable diseases such as: diarrhea, respiratory infections, which places Chiapas among the first Mexican states in childhood mortality. Infections diseases are still the main health public concern. Tuberculosis is one of the leading infectious diseases in terms of morbidity and mortality.

A major challenge for today’s health care providers around most of the world is that culturally diverse groups comprise the largest growing segment of the patient population. Individual health care choices and outcomes must be understandable to patients in terms of their own culture and experience. Thus, health care workers are faced with the need to develop intercultural competencies that allow them to recognize their own cultural norms, understand the patient’s unique viewpoint, and effectively adjust their behaviors to maximize care.

In 2013, diverse academicians and the Intercultural University of Chiapas (UNICH), proposed an innovative model for teaching Medicine: Intercultural Medicine. Students are formed not only with the basis of Medicine, but this challenging educative model is also based on the Intercultural philosophy of teaching and learning, which incorporates cultural, ethnic, linguistic, social, economical elements of Chiapas society, among others.

I was involved in the planning, development and design of this innovative education model. For further information see: Biología Celular (MID0004), Bioquímica (MID0001), Genética (MID0009), Histología (MID0006), Epidemiología (MID0012), y Propedéutica Clínica (MID005).