THE UNIVERSITY of the Philippines (UP) Mindanao officially opened the School of Medicine (SoMed) campus on Friday, Sept 4, at the former Philippine Baking Institute in Ecoland, led by the university’s officials and partners.
During the launch, the campus’ first and pioneering batch, named “Batch Banwag”, was recognized, as they will begin their journeys not only to pursue medical degrees but to serve communities and help shape Mindanao’s future.
Banwag, meaning beacon, represents their hope of lighting the way for those who will follow, leading the way for a more equitable health system in Mindanao.
The batch is composed of 40 students who are from Luzon, Visayas, and mostly from Mindanao, each having different backgrounds.
They will also be trained under the Doctor of Medicine program, a comprehensive five-year MD program that adopts the Organ System Integrated (OSI) curriculum from UP Manila School of Health Sciences.
Presently, the campus serves as a temporary training ground for the medical students and has four full-time faculty members and one dean. It also includes a few plastinates, with more essential medical equipment arriving soon.
The main campus, located in Mintal, will soon build a permanent location together with a hospital based on the timeline.
During a press conference, UP President Angelo Jimenez highlighted that the university’s priority is to serve those who are residing in geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas (GIDA), the indigenous peoples’ areas, and Muslim communities in Mindanao.
SoMed will also uphold the UP’s statutory mandate to provide affordable and quality medical education for students as well as to address the ongoing shortage of physicians in Mindanao.
According to UP Mindanao Chancellor Lyre Anni Murao, Mindanao produces only 1/5 of the World Health Organization (WHO)- recommended doctor-to-population ratio.
She added that 50% of GIDA areas in the Philippines are in the region where close to zero percent of doctors serve in those areas.
“So this School of Medicine is uniquely designed for socially accountable medical education. Our goal is to equip our medical students with the right training so that they can serve back in the areas where they are needed. And therefore we need to ground them not only in competence but also in community, in culture, and in care,” Murao said.
SoMed Interim Dean Philip Ian Padilla shared that they had approached the Department of Health (DOH) to explore a memorandum of agreement for deploying the medical students as interns to hone them in the administrative side of public health and be able to come up with better health systems.
