The urgent call from the classrooms: Mexico needs more and better doctors
Leonardo Lomelí, the rector of UNAM, did not mince words. Amid caps and gowns, he issued a warning that sounds like an ambulance siren: the country faces brutal structural challenges in terms of health. And the solution necessarily involves training more professionals with integrity, capacity for innovation and, above all, that human dimension that is not learned in books.
He said it in front of 252 new specialists graduated from the Salvador Zubirán National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition. But his message was directed far beyond those walls. It was a diagnosis for the entire nation.
“Mexico requires more highly qualified doctors, with integrity, capacity for innovation and research, without losing the human dimension of their profession,” said Lomelí.
And then came the hard fact, the one that hurts: life expectancy here is 75.5 years. A number that falls short if we compare it with the average of the rich OECD countries. Mortality that could be prevented or treated remains higher than in other nations. In Creole: our health system has a fever and needs urgent reinforcement.
A historic alliance facing a complex future
Also at the event were the federal Secretary of Health, David Kershenobich, and the director of the INCMNSZ, José Sifuentes Osornio. The three highlighted something key: UNAM and ‘Zubirán’ have been defending health and education as fundamental rights for decades. Not as privileges.
Kershenobich put his finger on another sore spot: chronic diseases, mental health and the technological tsunami (including artificial intelligence) are the new monsters to combat. High specialty medicine must respond with quality and equity.
But Sifuentes Osornio gave perhaps the most important reminder of the day to the recent graduates:
“No technology replaces clinical judgment or attentive listening to the patient.”
That’s the heart of the matter. You can have the most advanced robots and the most precise algorithms, but without that human connection, without that ‘clinical eye’ that is cultivated with experience and empathy, everything falls apart.
The political theater is full of grandiose speeches about health. But here, between diplomas and applause, it was clear: training excellent doctors is not an academic whim. It is a matter of life and death for millions.
