To form a quality physician capable of facing the Colombian reality and capable of responding to the public health needs on an individual, family and community level, keeping in mind both preventive and curative modes; a physician with initiative and creativity, able to know and use the most appropriate technology; a physician who can exercise leadership at the social level and one who is able to work in an inter and multi disciplinary fashion with a vision toward a future integrated health system for the human being. His integrity must transcend and he must be able to focus on the human being from within its social, political, economical, cultural, scientific and psychological ambiance. He must do this with the highest possible ethical sense.FEH:mrh

The Medical School was created on May 29, 1950 by Public Decree #641 of the government of El Valle. The Medical School was created in response to the recommendation of the deans of the different medical schools that existed at that moment in Colombia. This recommendation was enacted by the Medical Society of El Valle.
On Oct. 12, 1951, under the leadership of the first Dean, Dr. Gabriel Velasquez Palau and five professors, 50 students initiated the first promocion of the nascent Medical School. The first site was the old Calustro of Santa Librada. Two years later, they initiated practical training in the Hospital San Juan de Dios. By that time, the university hospital was under construction and would open only its first floors in 1956, lending itself to further training.
Since, 2,754 physicians have graduated from the Medical School. They are characterized by an outstanding professional idoneidad, very high compromiso, with both the region and the country. Many graduates have had desempanado, very important political, social and leadership roles in the state, the country, international organizations, and universities. Many are currently involved in the same activities.
Currently, the Medical School, as part of the Health Sciences of the Universidad del Valle, has an enrollment of 677 students, crocedentes of all the states in regions of the country; they have competed with all the national students to enroll in this school.
This year, the presidency of the Republic of Colombia and the Ministry of Education have bestowed the Order of the Superior Education and Public Faith “Luis Lopez de Meza.” to the academic program of Medicine and Surgery of the Universidad del Valle, as an acknowledgment of its academic quality.
A speech by Dr. Oscar Rojas Renteria, Chancellor of the Universidad del Valle, during the ceremonies celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Medical School, Cali, Oct. 17, 2001:
Let me initiate the speech with a tone of optimism and joy. The occasion that unites us today is appropriate to exalt in memory of those pioneers who overcame obstacles of many orders and who gave themselves to the ponderosa job of turning into reality a dream: to give Cali, to the Valle del Cauca, and to the country the best Medical School in the Americas.
As one reads the chronicles left behind by the founding fathers of what today is this Medical School, one finds men with vision who, many of them still alive today, who with imagination and tenson, successfully accomplished a centennial change for the medicine in Valle del Cauca and in Colombia, just 50 years ago.
The list is not very long. The alora may appear too brief, I must lengthily enunciate the list of illustrious men that adelantoran this quest. The Major General, if I can so call, who clearly is recognized as a spirit and brain of this happy initiative, is still with us today -- Dr. Gabriel Velasquez Palau. He is one of the most important men in the Public Health and medical
education and Latin America and the world. For him and for the illustrious group of physicians such as Dr. Alfonso Krogi; I also would like to recognize those who are now departed,
Drs. Santiago and many whose names I may forget, and for whom I humbly request this audience to recognize with an ovation.Page 2What has happened here was a parallel development to what was occurring in many other fields of our country. The Valle del Cauca, can be considered a modern region because of its equilibrium of its industrial development, because of the distribution of its social development, because of the standard of living of its inhabitants; by the job of modernizing, the state has been a recent phenomenon. The Valle del Cauca, as such, is a contemporary product. Its institutions, business and society have been for result of a great evolucion of creativity during the period of time that coincides with the founding of the Medical School.
This is the same origin of the Universidad del Valle. Calustro Santa Librada, the first schools are designated: Architecture, Chemical Engineering, Electro-Mechanical Engineering, School of Medicine. Dr. Gabriel Velasquez Pelau tells of his afanes in the offices of the North American Foundation, the public offices of national and state organizations, from the other universities, as he could from the Medical School of those years. He had the help of those physicians who you now could qualify as apostles.
This brotherhood is important, in not only that this gave the region a well-needed school but also after an initial proposal, they achieved the establishment of a new Order of Medical Education; this was a new concept for the reason for the existence of medical care, focusing on factors like prevention, public health, the adaptation of modern procedures to the ambient reality. What was achieved there was a revolution. Belatedly this was the entry of Colombian medicine into the 20th century.
Each new phase brought its afan but what the founders though continued to be valid: the delanteaninto of the medical profession as a social and not individual role, with a global vision of the protection of the health care of the community; these physicians should deliver a service tempered always with the acuciantes national realities and the marvelous process of technical modernization.

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Julio Mora, M.D.              
President                        
moragra@abbti.com              

Fred E. Husserl, M.D.
Vice-President
fhusserl@aol.com

Soffy Botero, M.D.
Treasurer
soffyb@cox.net

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