HAVANA, Cuba — After Hurricane Katrina devastated parts of Louisiana and Mississippi in August 2005, Cuba offered a cadre of doctors and medical supplies to help treat injured and displaced Americans. Cuba is renowned around the world for the quality of its doctors — but the United States government declined the offer.

Of course, that’s not exactly surprising given the two countries’ decades of animosity. Tension between Cuba and the U.S. is most visibly epitomized by a still-in-place trade embargo imposed by the U.S. in 1960, one year after Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara led a revolution to turn Cuba into a communist state.

Given the frosty relations and how the U.S. declined Cuban medical aid in 2005, one might reasonably assume the island just 90 miles south of Florida is the last place an American would go for medical school.

One would be wrong.

Lillian Burnett, who is from Oakland, is proof — and she’s not alone.

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