Philippine Medical Schools - On Comprehensibility

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eeper30

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I am planning to take medicine after I graduate from my bachelor's degree program. I have already been doing a some researching, surveying and comparisons on different medicals schools on different aspects.

Now, I would like to focus on the comprehensibility and teaching methods of Philippine medical schools in training and educating students.

I believe that it isn't the passing rate of schools that reflects the overall education experience of the school as selectiveness and leniency in admission may be a great factor in producing outliers. However, I believe that even with a medical school with excellent facilities, high profile professors, and the like, one important thing to consider in the whole medical education is the way the student accepts, processes and understands medicine in general.

For example, I have heard that St. Lukes is one of the most prestigious medical institutions in the Philippines with high standards yet great facilities and mentors. However, according to many students, their teaching methods are not that comprehensible. They opt to go to another schools instead to continue their education, and apparently peform better afterwards.

Our Lady of Fatima, on the other hand, is very lenient and less selective of students. Despite the projected negative image of Fatima as a medical school, some students actually rate the teaching methods of Fatima as very comprehensible as they make concepts and the learning process very easy and understandable. According to them, the only reason why Fatima has a low passing rate is that most of the time, about 50% of class are smart, 50% of the class are not that determined - this is due to the leniency and less selectiveness of the school on admission.

Could you shed some light on the trueness of this dilemma? on the topic as a whole? What can you say about your respective school?

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I can only speak for the University of the Philippines.

Slots are very limited, only around 150 a year. It is stated in the website that students with NMAT grade of lower than 90 percentile will not be considered, but in truth, most of the students who get accepted got NMAT scores of 95 and above. Well, UP has reason to be very selective... because the tuition fee is subsidized by the government.

Didactics comprise the first two years of med school. Lecturers are the leading physicians in the country. Some doctors are able to communicate the topics well, others are utterly boring. However, it is up to the student how he makes the most out of each lesson... huge emphasis on being committed to learning.

Starting 3rd year, you'll get to be at the clinics. Training is in the Philippine General Hospital, the largest referral center in the country. Thus, you can expect to see thousands of cases, especially during your clerkship and internship years.

Facilities are as what could be expected of a large government hospital that is severely underfunded. Expect to do a lot of scut work, even in internship (final year).

The setting sounds less than ideal, but UP College of Med has consistently been the top performing school in the local boards. :cool:
 
UP has reason to be very selective... because the tuition fee is subsidized by the government.

There is only one reason UP is selective...they receive more applications than there are places. Clear up your fuzzy thinking.:)
 
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Hey, I smiled.:) But I have to call it as I see it.:)
 
Because the only thing worth seeing is your way right?

I do hope you contribute more to the discussion than just nitpick needlessly.
 
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