Education for public health in Puerto Rico: 1940-1942.

Formal training in public health in Puerto Rico began in 1940 when a degree-granting Division of Public Health was established within the existing School of Tropical Medicine. The division was sponsored by five institutions--the Puerto Rico Department of Health, the U.S. Public Health Service, the Children's Bureau, the University of Puerto Rico, and Columbia University--each which had a different concept of the aims, scope and character of the training. Conflicts relating to these issues were exacerbated by managerial and budgetary problems, and the program began fitfully and with great difficulties. As a result, the training which was planned in 1940 and launched in 1941 was scrapped or redesigned the following year.