Without the Whitecoat
Choosing a medical school... PBL vs. Traditional
The school year 2006-2007 is just around the corner and for those who still aspire to become doctors or "healers" there are four medical schools to choose from. Three are in Panay and one is in Negros Occidental. The colleges of medicine in the island of Panay are West Visayas State University (PBL-problem based learning), the Iloilo Doctors' College (traditional) and lastly Central Philippine University(traditional + Christian values). Choosing a medical school for your children may be a difficult one. WVSU is a government institution so the expenses are contained to a minimum, both Doctors' and CPU are private institutions offering different programs. If the budget for your kid's medical education is limited you may opt to enroll your child at WVSU which practices PBL type of teaching. (Some universities in Manila have already tried to adopt the system under their curriculum, but have reverted back to the traditional type of teaching). As early in medical school, students have to be taught to become compassionate and caring physicians in the future, away from that of being goal-oriented and profit motivated as shown by some attending consultants. It may be hard to take out the business aspect in medical practice, but let us face it, the physicians nowadays are confronted with a lot of financial challenges for him and his family to survive. For some, they have taken the route into taking up nursing, thus getting some lucrative offers in the US. As a surviving and hard working class of people (Filipinos) we will always search for greener pastures, from the early Ilocanos that sailed to the shores of Hawaii to work in sugarcane and pineapple plantation to the waterfront and wharf of Northern California and Seattle, Washington and the shorelines of Alaska.
The type of medical school that we selected for our children will eventually show the kind of physicians they will become. CPU is relatively new in the medical education, but have already produced the best nurses in the world. The college of medicine of CPU, have incorporated Christian values and living to its medical curriculum guarantees that, in one way or another, it will produce the first "Christian doctors" in the region. It is like having a growing child, we nurtured them early in life with all the "right and correct" teachings expecting a very good product; in medical school we mold the students as early as possible so they will be trained at an early age. It is so hard to tear down or saw off a growing "horn" especially among graduates of medicine.
With the "rush" of brain-drain among the medical practitioners and the growing mentality of our community towards "specialties" we entirely forget the role of primary health care physician which is the backbone of the health care system of this country and come to think about it a lot of our primary care physicians have enrolled or have already finished nursing school. Primary health care should be taught as early in medical school, making our foundations stronger, initiated programs by medical schools toward the community like a berthing center, and a community out-reach program are just some things a parent will look in a medical school. (It is how much the medical student will bring back to his/her community).
Medical education nowadays, may it private or government, will entail expense, the public sector may save a lot of money on tuition fees, but the books that are used in both government and private medical institutions cost the same. The medical school that we choose will determine the outcome or product it generates. Due to the increasing advancement in medical technologies and the proliferation of a lot of specialized fields (Fields of Specialties) that patient who is the human being has now been treated as disease or illness or just a plain old number waiting outside his doctor's clinic. The specialists had approach the human being in front of him for consultation as an organ system of specialty and have forgotten totally and entirely that the patient in front of him is a breathing human being. Pulmonary tuberculosis, the most common disease entity that have affected the low socio-economic class of our society and the entire Filipino community from the rich to the poor is now addressed by a"specialized group" of concerned Ilonggo physicians made up of "some" pulmonologists and "some" infectious specialists, but have totally left out the "primary care physicians" (family physicians, municipal/rural health officers, general practitioners) who are actually the frontliners in medical care in battling tuberculosis in our country.
Medical education may it be PBL or traditional should produce capable, qualified, compassionate and caring physicians that will serve their countrymen.