Physicians Juan Taveras and Yamil Koury, professors of medicine at the Harvard Medical School, are seeking to convert the new Centro de Diagnóstico y Medicina Avanzada, part of the Plaza de la Salud, a complex of four clinics being built on the grounds of the former Santo Domingo race track, into the most modern medical center for diagnostics in Latin America and the Caribbean. As such, the doctors expect to attract patients from all over the Americas, as has occurred in the past in Cuba. The Center will have a Centro de Conferencias Médicas y Telemedicina for outpatients and the carrying out of diagnostics by advanced telecommunications systems.
Speaking to the press while presenting their plans for the institute, Yamil Koury commented that economic difficulties in Cuba have not permitted it to continue its previously advanced pace in the development of the medicine. He said that the Center will also house an Instituto Dominicano de Medicina Avanzada Dr. Juan M. Taveras, for diagnostics, teaching and medical research.
An agreement with the Harvard Medical School will make it possible for very advanced techniques, products of medical developments at the University, to be made available here, and Dominican and visiting physicians can take advantage of advanced medical training.
The DR will then be at the very vanguard of advanced medicine in Latin America. He explained that arrangements are being made to establish a permanent relationship between the Dominican medical center, the Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital where Doctors Koury and Taveras have worked for many years.
The other three hospitals being built at the Plaza de la Salud are a maternity/infant care, geriatrics and trauma center.