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As part of a project on professionals' lived experience of ethics, this article explores the guiding concepts and values concerning ethics of mental health professionals in Cuba. The data, obtained through individual interviews and focus groups with 28 professionals, indicate that Cubans conceptualize applied ethics in terms of its central role in professional practice and its connection to the social context and subjective processes. Findings also show that Cuban professionals are guided not only by a set of professional values but by a specific set of civic values as well. The former are subdivided into other-oriented values and self-oriented values. The study of ethics in another culture such as Cuba offers a unique point of view from which to critique the social construction of our own conceptions of applied ethics in North America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a study conducted in the province of Cienfuegos, it was proved by using immunological and biomolecular tools that intestina amebiasis in that province was an overdimensioned health problem. A survey on knowledge, perceptions and practices applied to those physicians related to the diagnosis, treatment and control of this parasitosis showed that the overdimensioning may be associated with an inadequate perception of the problem and with a marked lack of knowledge about important aspects of this entity. To contribute to the solution of the ovedimensioning and of its consequences, a set of actions were taken in that province. After a year, a second survey was done, whose results are published in this document, allowing to know about a significant improvement of the surveyed in almost all the evaluated cognitive and perceptual aspects (6.73 and 11.23 means of correct answers before and after the intervention, respectively).

Three studies were conducted in Cienfuegos province to prove that intestinal amebiasis in Cuba could be an overestimated health problem. The first two studies showed two components of this overestimation: microscopical overdiagnosis and lack of knowledge about Entamoeba dispar, a non-pathogenic species, in most cases in which microscopical examination was correct. This paper reported the third study that showed the third component: the wrong belief that Entamoeba histolytica is resistant to metronidazole. Thirty-five individuals infected with one or both species of E-histolytica-E. dispar combination were given metronidazole at a dose of 250 mg three times daily for 10 days. Stool samples taken immediately after the treatment were tested by ENZYMEBA to detect one or both species and by a multiplex polymerase chain reaction procedure to determine the existing species. The results of these assays revealed that E. histolytica infection disappeared in all the cases, therefore, we may conclude that in Cienfuegos province and probably in the rest of the country, metronidazol remains an effective drug in the treatment of intestinal amebiasis