Cuban doctors struggle to prove credentials in US

In this March 18, 2011 photo, Dr. Julio Cesar Alfonso, head of the South Florida group Solidarity Without Borders Inc., right, meets with Cuban doctors Roberto Carmona, left, and Laura Arias, center, in Hialeah, Fla. Carmona and a number of other Cuban physicians who defected while on overseas assignments have confronted a frustrating contradiction in American medicine.

By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ

AP Hispanic Affairs Writer

MIAMI — Roberto Carmona sneaked away from his superiors disguised as a South African cowboy. While working in Namibia, the doctor donned boots and a big hat so he could slip out to the American Embassy, where he asked about qualifying for a special program for Cuban physicians that he hoped would let him defect to the U.S.
Nearly a year later, he was accepted, just days before his overseas job ended. Carmona fled to Tampa, but escaping his homeland turned out to be the easy part.
Carmona and a number of other Cuban physicians who defected while on overseas assignments have confronted a frustrating contradiction in American medicine: They were allowed into the U.S. because they are doctors. But, once here, they cannot treat patients because Cuba has refused to release or certify their academic records.

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