History of Latin American Dermatology

E. SILVA-LIZAMA, P. H. URQUIZU, P. GREENBERG, S. DE LEÓNJorge Ubico on March 1, 1939, says: “The Military Hospital has performed its role in asatisfactory manner; the effort and efficiency of the staff working in that establishmentdeserves recognition.” Improvements were made in the building, and equipment, furniture,instruments and medicine bought; the hospital was considered one of the best inthe country.In the year 1943, one of the main diseases treated at the hospital was blennorrhagia.In 1945 the Dermatology and Venereology Service was taken over by Dr. FernandoCordero, followed in 1946 by Dr. Luis Gálvez Molina; the service included a doctor’s assistant,two male nurses and one or two orderlies.In 1968, Dr. Eduardo Silva Martínez was appointed to head the Dermatology service.In 1970 Dr. Neftalí Villanueva, disciple of Dr. Silva Martínez, obtained the post of medicalassistant to the service. The latter was reorganized and made to include a president,a deputy president, hospitalization services and outpatient offices.On June 16, 1975, the President of the State University, the Minister of National Defense,the Dean of the Medical School and the President of the Military Hospital signedan agreement to convert it into a Teaching Hospital, with the academic recognition of theMedical School’s Governing Board. The program was aimed at external and internalpractitioners. Activities were programmed from February to July and were divided intosix scientific and academic “modules” carried out on a monthly basis. Each model wasdeveloped around a main subject with sub-fields oriented toward related medicalbranches. The month of July corresponded to the Dermatology module, the main aims ofwhich were to better train the medical student and encompass the syllabus of the MedicalSchool of the University of San Carlos de Guatemala, and to interest specialists in Dermatologyin teaching activities 11 .In 1977, the Dermatology service was joined by the dermatologists Antonio Wong Galdamezand Miguel Eduardo Robles Soto, both with graduate studies in Mexico. In thatperiod that Dermatology service included distinguished physicians certified by nationaland foreign universities, marking a new stage of development of the specialized field.Departmental sessions were organized with the goal of staging visits to areas with endemiccutaneous leishmaniasis.One of the doctors who greatly contributed to the Dermatology service was ArturoGarcía Valdez, an eminent dermatologist who provided his professional services from1970 to 1989.In this period the service included a director, deputy director, three dermatologists foroutpatient care and a dermatologist for hospitalization services. In 1978, the PediatricDermatology Clinic was created. In that same year, the Defense Ministry, seeking to havespecialized medical personnel, awarded the physicians at the Military Hospital scholarshipsto train abroad; for that reason, in March 1981 Dr. Eduardo Silva-Lizama was sentto the Dermatological Institute of Guadalajara, joining the service in 1983 13 .In 1986 Dr. Thomas Navin, of the Parasitary Diseases division of the Center for DiseaseControl, Atlanta, United States, and Dr. Byron Arana of the Center for Research intoTropical Diseases of the University of the Valley of Guatemala collaborated with the servicein the study of cutaneous leishmaniasis. This latter caused the Dermatology serviceto become one of the most important reference points and centers for the study of skinparasitoses, particularly cutaneous leishmaniasis, in Guatemala 12 .From 1989 to 1990 Dr. Neftalí Villanueva Valdez was head of the Dermatology service;1989 the dermatologists Edgar Cifre Recinos and Carlos Villanueva Ochoa joinedthe service, the last-named as head of the sub-field of Dermatological Surgery.Since 1990 the post of head of the service has been held by Dr. Antonio Wong Galdamezand in 1991 Drs. Ricardo Garzona Barillas and Manolo Gutiérrez joined the service.The Military Hospital’s facilities had been in service since 1920; most of the constructionwas of wattle and daub. Nevertheless, through constant investment it had been236