DECEMBER 2024
SEE COMPLETE NEWSLETTER
With more than 1.100 professionals completing the program, the UBA Master's in Clinical Effectiveness has impacted the way we think about health in our country and in Latin America.
Master's Team

(Clinical Effectiveness Program), today
Master of Clinical Effectiveness
In May 1996, while walking down Broadway and Fifth Avenue in New York, right in front of the Flatiron Building, Drs. Adolfo (Dolfi) and Fernando Rubinstein first discussed the possibility of creating a graduate program for Argentina and the region modeled after and inspired by the Harvard School of Public Health's Clinical Effectiveness program. Dolfi had recently graduated from that program and his mentor, Dr. Fran Cook, who also directed the master's program at Harvard, supported the idea and promised to get the Harvard School of Public Health involved in making the dream a reality.
The first years were not easy. The main idea of the project was to be part of the development of a different culture of clinical and health research, professional practice and the functioning of health organizations, offering a training opportunity that would provide the necessary tools for decision-making based on the best evidence.
With this vision in mind, Dolfi and Fernando, three colleagues who had also completed the Master's degree, Drs. Andrés Pichón Riviere, Federico Augustovski and Ezequiel García Elorrio, together with professors who had graduated from other universities, designed a training program with an emphasis on the application of quantitative and analytical methods for research, evaluation, implementation and management. In May 1998, with the support of Dr. Cook and other professors from the Harvard School of Public Health and the Italian Hospital of Buenos Aires, our program was accredited as a two-year Master's program of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA).
In April 1999 we started the first promotion with 56 students. In this long journey, Dolfi was its director until 2017 with Fran as co-director. Dolfi was succeeded by Fernando, who in 2023 passed the baton to the Dr. Vilma Irazola, completing a virtuous circle of talent and generational change.
It may seem unbelievable, but the PEC (Clinical Effectiveness Program), now the Master's Degree in Clinical Effectiveness, is 25 years old.
Over the years, the PEC has set out to promote professional development with knowledge and skills to influence health organizations, both at national and regional levels, provide tools to design and conduct research studies, critically interpret evidence, and design, implement and evaluate the impact of health interventions. Our teaching staff is made up of prestigious professors in the different areas covered by the curriculum and, currently, almost all of them are graduates of the program.
To date, more than 1.100 professionals from Argentina and the region have completed the program and have been and will be a key element of this great project, which, as a bridge between medical care and public health, has impacted the way of thinking about health in our country and in Latin America.
These 25 years have represented a highly gratifying effort that speaks of commitment, enthusiasm and rigor, but also of initiative, confidence and commitment to the future that have sustained the permanence, growth and constant renewal of the PEC. This has allowed us to contribute to the development of capacities and to create a "culture of evaluation" of health interventions, programs and policies in the country and in the region.
Thank you to everyone who made this wonderful project possible. And thank you once again for trusting us and being part of a transformation that began as a dream and is now over 25 years old.