Each geographic region may face different major medical needs. My impression is that at least in Mid-Europe (e.g. Germany) there is a good representation of education and overwhelming research funding for many neurological diseases, but only minor ressources for immunology. Should there be more?
Dear Dr. Eibl, here in Brazil (and I believe in South America as well) Clinical Immunology is really underrepresented in medical curriculum. The medicine students only see Immunology as a Basic or Applied Science at the beginning of medical school. After graduation they have an option to study immunology as a medical residency, however, for many countries of South America Clinical Immunology is actually focused on Allergic Diseases. Regarding the importance of immunology on our days, lack of immunology on curriculum is a fault.
I agree 100% with the views of Dr Eibl and Dr Boechat that Immunology as a clinical discipline is really underrepresented and underestimated as well. Here in Pakistan there are very few clinical immunologist who have pursued their career as postgraduates in this field of medicine. At undergraduate level it is not taught as it should be. The major drawback is it is being taught, at the undergraduate level, by the specialist other than immunologists of basic sciences. The immunopathogenesis and immunological diagnosis of the diseases is also not justifiably taught. In this era of increasing transplantation and specially stem cell studies, I fail to recognize what is keeping the stakeholders here and the students to shy away from this increasingly growing and very rewarding field of medicine.
One added problem is the institutes find Immunology very expensive both diagnostically and therapeutically and remains unaffordable for most of the patients in a developing country like ours.
I completely agree, in Nigeria the medical training in Immunology is mostly laboratory-based with little or no clinical exposure. There is also no residency training program in immunology, though there are MSc and Phd programs available. This in my opinion needs to be re-evaluated.
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