Mission 

The Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, commits itself to the pursuit of excellence in medical education, scientific research and community service, guided by Christian ethics and values.

The school affirms its task in the development and formation of competent and compassionate Thomasian physicians who are committed to health care delivery of global standards and in accord with the needs and goals of the nation.

Vision

By the year 2011, the fourth centenary of the University, the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery envisions itself as the premiere Catholic medical school in Asia and shall have achieved the following:

    1.The undisputed Center of Excellence in medical education

    - with a distinct Thomasian medical curriculum that balances traditional and innovative approaches that instill lifelong self-directed learning discipline.

    - with a passing rate in the licensure examinations not lower than 95% and with not less than six slots in the top ten positions.

    - with excellent credentials of the faculty, 30% of which are MS holders, 10% are Ph.D. holders, 100% are fellows or diplomates of their specialty, and 10% have education credentials.

    - with a state-of-the-art Medical Informatics Center with extensive IT infrastructure and offering web-enhanced courses.

    - with a dynamic continuing medical education program offering quality postgraduate courses in every field of specialty, including Bioethics

    - with trend-setting postgraduate programs in basic and clinical sciences, Bioethics and Medical Education, leading to Masteral/Ph.D. degrees

    - with linkages with leading medical schools abroad for exchange of faculty and students and for collaborative works.

2.  A Center of research in medicine

    - with a research output of no less than 30 per year published in prestigious journals.

    - with the Santo Tomas Journal of Medicine accredited by the Institute for Scientific Information and listed in the Index Medicus.

3. A leader in community / extension services

    - with a course in Public Health using community outreach programs as the venue and laboratory.

    - with enlightened faculty and studentry devoted to the needy and marginalized populace, through a more expanded community outreach program in cooperation with the UST Medical Missions, Inc. and other non-governmental organizations, providing health care to no less than 1,000 families on a regular basis and no less than 10,000 patients in its visiting missions.

HISTORY

From the time it started receiving students in 1871 until 1927, classes in the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery were held in the Walled City. In 1927, freshmen and sophomore classes were moved to the present España Campus, but the clinical years continued in Intramuros because clinical instruction was given at the San Juan De dios Hospital. On September 21, 1944, the Walled City building that housed the classes were razed to the ground, during one of the early engagements for the liberation of Manila. And, when the war ended, the entire school transferred to the present campus, to the four storey building it currently occupies. At present, the Medicine Building which was later renamed St. Martin de Porres Building houses eleven air-conditioned conference lecture halls, seven laboratories including a large dissection hall, an Ossarium and the Museums of Legal Medicine, Anatomy and Pathology. In addition, it boasts of a large auditorium with seating capacity of 1,200,a state-of-the-art CME auditorium with a seating capacity of 350, an updated medical library, a high tech learning resources unit, an adjacent Experimental Surgery Building with facilities for Molecular Biology, and numerous regular classrooms shared with the College of Nursing and Institute of Physical Therapy. Originally open exclusively to men, women were admitted to Medicine for the first time in 1932, by order of the Congregation of Studies of the Holy See and in response to public demand. The first women graduates completed their studies in 1937.

Equipment and facilities have improved gradually through the years in line with the University's policy keeping in step with the times, especially in laboratory, library and audio-visual facilities.

The College celebrated its Centennial year in 1971.

Historical Notes:

Administrators

Contact Information

FACILITIES

Dr. Hubert G.H. Wong Medical Informatics Center 

The UST Medical Informatics Center is the premier resource in the country that actively seeks to harness the latest advances in information technology for the enhancement and support of Medical Education and Research at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Consisting of two computer laboratories and a virtual library, the Center is equipped with a local network of over 200 computer stations with both cable and Wi-Fi connections to high-speed broadband internet, and access to the widest collection of full-text online electronic journal databases in the country.  A wide range of IT services is likewise offered, from hardware troubleshooting and repair, to software configuration, to presentation graphics, and even to digital video capture and editing.

The demands of learning medicine in a globalized environment can be quite challenging.  The Faculty of Medicine Surgery has taken a bold step forward by introducing a course on Medical Informatics to all incoming freshmen, and later on, to smaller groups of students and trainees at various levels of competence.  This radically augments the traditional educational methods of relying on lectures and books alone as a source of knowledge.  The huge volume of biomedical information that currently exists is impossible to cope with by traditional methods.  Hence, to effectively learn medicine, the medical student must develop the habits and styles of self-directed, highly motivated, lifelong learners.  In this setting, the average student will soon find himself at a loss to cope with the increased requirement for personal productivity unless he receives guidance specifically intended to develop and strengthen skills to help meet the demands of self-directed learning.  Medical Informatics is envisioned to facilitate the search for biomedical knowledge and information so that the students and trainees will be adequately equipped with the techniques and skills of searching for, acquiring and retrieving, and storing necessary biomedical information so that it will be available when and where it will be most valuable - whether in the classroom setting or at the patient's bedside.

The indispensable role of Medical Informatics in modern medical education arises from an increasing awareness that biomedical knowledge and clinical information about patients are essentially unmanageable by traditional paper-based methods, and from a growing conviction that the processes of knowledge retrieval and expert decision-making are as important to modern biomedicine as the knowledge-fact base on which clinical decisions or research plans are made.

The Electron Microscopy Unit (EMU) of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery is the latest of all the units in the College.  The Unit has been established under the Office of the Dean with the following objectives: 1) to coordinate the use of electron microscope in the teaching of subjects that require ultrastructural evaluation;  2) to coordinate and assist in ultrastructural research works; and 3) to provide diagnostic electron microscopy services.

The EMU offers the services of the electron microscopy laboratory primarily to the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery.  These services, however, are also available to other Faculties and Colleges of the University of Santo Tomas and to outside colleges and universities upon the approval of the Office of the Dean.

The Electron Microscopy Unit is presently located in Room 120, ground floor, Medicine Building, near the office of the Department of Pathology.

The Research Center for the Health Sciences (RCHS) was established on October 16, 1984.  It was then called the Health Sciences Research Management Group (HSRMG) whose functions were to assist in research protocol development and collate research outputs.  In 2003, with funds from the University and the medical alumni, the old Experimental Surgery building underwent an extensive renovation to house the Research Center for the Health Sciences.  This three-storey building is located at the back of the St. Martin de Porres (Medicine) Building.  The experimental animal laboratory, located on the ground floor, provides facilities for animal experimentations.  The second floor, where the office of the Director and the staff is located, provides a conference room and computers with internet connections.  The third floor is the research laboratory.  It contains newly-acquired state-of-the-art research equipment.  The equipment, offered for free to the faculty, provide capabilities for research in basic and clinical sciences.  The RCHS has hired the services of a full-time molecular biologist and part-time biostatistician to assist the researchers.  Since its inauguration, there have been several projects in the Center.  Faculty members involved in clinical trials are also using the facilities of the Research Center.

The other function of the Research Center is to screen and approve research projects for funding by the University.  The research grants are made possible through the Research and Endowment funds of the University.  To date, million of pesos in grants have been awarded to faculty members.

Health Sciences Library

The Health Sciences Library is located on the 4^th floor of the St. Martin de Porres Building.  It consists of three areas:  the reading room, the research room where the general collections are found, and the Maryland Room on the mezzanine where the journals and stacks of old books and bound journals are located.  It is fully air conditioned.

A library committee of the faculty serves as a liaison between the Medical School and the Library whose primary role is to oversee the continued updating of books and journals.

The library is open from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and the mezzanine floor from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon; 1:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Office of Continuing Medical Education 

In line with the concept of medical education as a continuous and life-long process and in keeping with its tradition and mission, the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery has pioneered in providing medical educational programs, facilities and services to the graduate physicians.

In 1979, the Office of Continuing Medical Education was created to coordinate and supervise all efforts, plans and programs of the different departments in continuing medical education and to attend to all their official needs in these activities.  It was also tasked to initiate more activities for continuing medical education.  In addition, the goals and thrust of the University of Santo Tomas, in general, and the Office of the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, in particular, must be filtered in to the CME Office into the various departments.  Postgraduate courses, though given and conceptualized by different departments, will have a distinctly Thomasian spirit.  Presently, the CME has given emphasis on the integration of bioethical considerations and the Thomasian school of thought in the course content of each and every postgraduate program.

The current Office of Continuing Medical Education has personalized its activities.  It has set guidelines that establish standards of excellence for all the postgraduate courses in the Faculty.  It is a centralized unit that provides all the needs of the departments relating to continuing medical education activities.

The UST Medicine Museum has been envisioned to be a recognized center for medical cultural heritage by showcasing the great legacy of the Medical School preserved through time and space and tasked to pay tribute to its venerable alumni by regularly exhibiting museum collections in medical instruments, breakthroughs, artifacts, models, paintings, inventions and other tangible cultural heritage.

The Medicine Museum shall integrate the rich collections of all the departments that compose and support the mission and vision of the school.

Located on the second floor of the Medicine Building, the Museum also serves as a supplementary teaching and learning methodology for students and professors, and other minds interested in the noble science and art of Medicine.  Visiting hours from Monday to Friday, are from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon and from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Weblinks

 http://www.ustlru.com

Schedule of Fees 

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