Loma Linda University Helps Start New Medical School at the Adventist University of the Philippines
by PR Web News Release
Loma Linda University (LLU) will help establish a new medical school in the Philippines. The Adventist University of the Philippines was recently granted permission by the Philippines Commission of Higher Education to open a medical school. It will be the sixth accredited medical school operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Dr. Richard Hart, president of LLU, is looking forward to this international partnership. “Since its founding, Loma Linda University has sent thousands of physicians, dentists and nurses to provide health care internationally. As the Adventist Church develops international universities, we can expand capacity by assisting with education for health professionals around the world.”
The team from LLU will be working with the first dean of the new medical school, Dr. Doris A. Mendoza, who garnered the experience necessary to take on her new position while serving as a medical school faculty member at West Visayas State University in the Philippines. She has outlined an up-to-date curriculum that will meet more stringent Filipino accreditation criteria.
The new department of medical education in the LLU School of Medicine has formed a working group to collaborate with Dr. Mendoza and her team. It includes Dr. Tammi Thomas, Dr. Lawrence Loo, and Dr. Daniel Giang. They will focus their efforts on developing the curriculum, building a strong faculty, upgrading the facilities and admitting the first class of students. AUP intends to accept its first class of 20 medical students in June 2014 and will use the Adventist Medical Center in Manila as its primary clinical teaching site. In addition, the new faculty at AUP will be enrolled in the online Master of Science degree program in Health Professions Education, an inter-professional graduate program at Loma Linda University designed to prepare clinicians to teach in the classroom.
Dr. Giang has congratulated AUP achieving accreditation for its medical school and anticipates collaborating with the new sister school. “Adventist health education provides distinctive added values to students as well as a first-rate education in various health sciences disciplines. We strive to help students synthesize their commitment to faith and science while viewing each patient as a ‘whole person’ rather than as cases of a disease. We see health care as part of an overall mission of representing God in the world is what we strive for.”
The department of education at the denomination's General Conference has provided additional resources to LLU to help with this project. Lenoa Edwards, assistant dean for admissions at the LLU School of Medicine, visited AUP to discuss admissions issues in April. “We anticipate a busy year for both AUP and LLU,” she said.
LLU assisted the Filipino university in developing its public health school about 30 years ago and worked with AUP to develop its dental school in 2005. Dr. Ronald Dailey, dean of the LLU School of Dentistry, was part of the collaboration eight years ago and believes LLU’s partnership with AUP is special. “This is a unique opportunity,” he said, “to build a medical school in a country that is striving to advance the quality of medical education in their country. It took visionary leadership to make LLU what it is today, and I am confident that same vision and skill will translate in this partnership with Adventist University of the Philippines.”
AUP is a highly regarded institution with successful schools of education, nursing, business, theology and health sciences. LLU provides resources for developing medical schools through its Global Health Institute and tailors its collaboration to meet the needs of each school. It will host the first international conference of Adventist medical educators in May 2014.
