[School of public health: 50 years serving medical education and health].

This is the speech pronounced by the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile, during the academic act that celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Chilean Public Health School endowment. The School could have been an independent entity, but its founders decided to ascribe it to the Faculty of Medicine. In this way, the doctrine of hygiene, social and preventive medicine could be preached in a better way to professors and students. The physicians trained at the School, created the National Health Service in 1952, that improved population's health through specific programs and techniques. In the last forty years, general and child mortality and infantile undernutrition have improved substantially, some infectious diseases have been eradicated, life expectancy has been prolonged, and most labors are attended by professionals. At the present time, medical education and public health are faced to new realities, consequent to economical, political and social changes. The educational program at the Faculty of Medicine are changing to adapt them to these changes. The Public Health School will have to contribute with new ideas to improve health care of our population that aspires to a efficacious, equitable, humane and economically feasible health system.