Yes. To this day Cuba is famous for having much better doctors, and even a pharmaceutical industry, than their poverty would suggest. I think it's fairly obvious that when the avenues for social status through entrepreneurship and initiative are limited, the avenues that remain do well - and medicine has been a high-status profession for a long time now. Likewise, the fields people don't go into for money, like scientific research or performing arts, seem to have been fiercely competitive and high quality in the planned economy countries.