by R-Jay Agbon
Last Saturday, September 26, 2015, the annual St. Luke’s College of Medicine Open House was held at the Angelo King Auditorium of the College.
The theme of this year’s open house was “LUKAN MD: Shaping the Future MD, Branding the Lukan Idenity”. More than 200 undergraduate students and parents attended the event.
In the morning session of the event, three keynote speakers talked about certain aspects of SLCM.
Dr. Joanne Sebastiana M. De Ramos, the new Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of SLCM, introduced the school to the audience and talked about the school’s culture of excellence, emphasizing on its 100% passing rate for first time takers in the Physician Licensure Exam for the past several years.
Dr. De Ramos also showed the demographics of the school, indicating the students’ undergraduate courses and the universities they graduated from. She also showed the number of scholarship grants, one of the things SLCM is famous for, each year.
A video presentation about the school’s history was also shown. This was followed by a stunning performance by the St. Luke’s Dance Company.
Then, the admission requirements were elaborated by Dr. Malaya P. Santos, the newly appointed College Secretary of SLCM.
The last keynote speaker was Jake Bryan S. Cortez from Class 2016 who is now a medical intern at St. Luke’s Medical Center. Mr. Cortez was the recipient of the very prestigious Jose Ledesma Scholarship for Academic Excellence.
He talked about student life in SLCM, sharing his experiences in the classroom and in the hospital. His final advice to the aspiring Lukans was to make sure that they really want to go into medical school because Medicine is not an easy path.
Thereafter, the SLCM Chorale did a marvelous performance of the song “Now That I Have You”.
An open forum followed wherein the participants, including the parents, were given the chance to raise questions about the College.
After the morning session, the participants were divided into ten groups for the campus tour.
The tour stations included the anatomy, histology, and biochemistry laboratories, the student lounge and Room 1202 for the school organizations, the library, the Research Management Office, and the Student Life stations in Dean Basa and Dean Perez Halls.
The parents had a separate tour with Dr. De Ramos. The tour was designed to showcase not just the facilities of SLCM but also to give the participants a glimpse of what life in SLCM is.
The closing ceremony, which started with an energetic performance by the SLCM Musicians’ Circle, followed the tours.
A second open forum was done to answer the remaining questions of the participants. Most of the questions were directed to the current students of the school.
The event ended with the closing remarks of the overall Project Head of the Open House, Angelica Rose P. Atienza, who is also currently the Secretary of the SLCM Student Council.
The Open House Team, responsible for making the event possible, is comprised of the following: Angelica Rose P. Atienza (Project Head), Jon Stewart H. Dy (Finance Officer-In-Charge), Louise Marielle G. De Guzman (Programs Officer-In-Charge), R-jay F. Agbon (Programs Committee Head), Lilette D. Torreña (Tours Committee Head), Michelle Pia Anne B. Austria and Erika Joy B. Velasquez (Finance Committee Heads), Jael Victoria D. Supan and Divine Grace B. Sangutan (Logistics Committee Heads), and Shane D. Chug and Faith Abigail K. Co (Publicity and Registration Committee Heads).
The success of this event was accredited to the meticulous preparations by the Open House Team.
“Preparations for the Open House started in June during the summer break. I decided to assign my fellow batchmates as the committee heads (rather than the traditional first years handling the event) so we could start planning early, considering the shift in the academic calendar. More or less, we had four months to prepare. There were several obstacles that came about but I’m proud to say that our team was able to overcome them smoothly,” stated Ms. Atienza in an interview after the event.
“The best aspect of this year’s Open House, really, is the team behind it – efficient, tenacious, and calm under pressure. It was the people that made the planning and the event itself a remarkable success.”
This year’s Open House is the most-attended so far, with more than 200 participants. “I could say that the major attractant for the attendees was the personalization of the tour groups, where we allowed them to register as a ‘barkada’ so that they’d be in the same group during the campus tour.”
Ms. Atienza elaborated, “We added a few activities this year to encourage interaction among the participants, such as the game where all 200+ of them had to arrange themselves alphabetically – a simple ice breaker that could potentially lead to an addition to their network of friends.”
“A favorite of mine for this year was the roaming Instagram border that a lot of the attendees used for photo ops, making a mark for SLCM Open House 2015, especially on social media,” Ms. Atienza added when asked what made this year’s open house unique from the previous ones.
It is undeniable that the highlight of this year’s Open House was the campus tour, as with the previous open house events.
The participants particularly loved the anatomy laboratory station because they got to see an actual cadaver.
They also liked the student life stations because they were able to feel, even just at a certain degree, how to be a student in St. Luke’s.
Another favorite station was the SLCM Library with its mini museum.
The aim of the Open House was to attract potential students – the best students – to enroll in SLCM. Whether this was achieved or not is still uncertain. However, based on the feedback on some of the participants, the Open House was an effective tool to entice undergraduate students to apply in St. Luke’s.
One of the participants said that she can’t wait to study in SLCM. Another one said that SLCM is back at the top of his list of med schools.
Hoping for the best, Ms. Atienza has a short but sweet message for the attendees: “Future Lukans, see you! You won’t regret this.” [x]
Last Saturday, September 26, 2015, the annual St. Luke’s College of Medicine Open House was held at the Angelo King Auditorium of the College.
The theme of this year’s open house was “LUKAN MD: Shaping the Future MD, Branding the Lukan Idenity”. More than 200 undergraduate students and parents attended the event.
In the morning session of the event, three keynote speakers talked about certain aspects of SLCM.
Dr. Joanne Sebastiana M. De Ramos, the new Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of SLCM, introduced the school to the audience and talked about the school’s culture of excellence, emphasizing on its 100% passing rate for first time takers in the Physician Licensure Exam for the past several years.
Dr. De Ramos also showed the demographics of the school, indicating the students’ undergraduate courses and the universities they graduated from. She also showed the number of scholarship grants, one of the things SLCM is famous for, each year.
A video presentation about the school’s history was also shown. This was followed by a stunning performance by the St. Luke’s Dance Company.
Then, the admission requirements were elaborated by Dr. Malaya P. Santos, the newly appointed College Secretary of SLCM.
The last keynote speaker was Jake Bryan S. Cortez from Class 2016 who is now a medical intern at St. Luke’s Medical Center. Mr. Cortez was the recipient of the very prestigious Jose Ledesma Scholarship for Academic Excellence.
He talked about student life in SLCM, sharing his experiences in the classroom and in the hospital. His final advice to the aspiring Lukans was to make sure that they really want to go into medical school because Medicine is not an easy path.
Thereafter, the SLCM Chorale did a marvelous performance of the song “Now That I Have You”.
An open forum followed wherein the participants, including the parents, were given the chance to raise questions about the College.
After the morning session, the participants were divided into ten groups for the campus tour.
The tour stations included the anatomy, histology, and biochemistry laboratories, the student lounge and Room 1202 for the school organizations, the library, the Research Management Office, and the Student Life stations in Dean Basa and Dean Perez Halls.
The parents had a separate tour with Dr. De Ramos. The tour was designed to showcase not just the facilities of SLCM but also to give the participants a glimpse of what life in SLCM is.
The closing ceremony, which started with an energetic performance by the SLCM Musicians’ Circle, followed the tours.
A second open forum was done to answer the remaining questions of the participants. Most of the questions were directed to the current students of the school.
The event ended with the closing remarks of the overall Project Head of the Open House, Angelica Rose P. Atienza, who is also currently the Secretary of the SLCM Student Council.
The Open House Team, responsible for making the event possible, is comprised of the following: Angelica Rose P. Atienza (Project Head), Jon Stewart H. Dy (Finance Officer-In-Charge), Louise Marielle G. De Guzman (Programs Officer-In-Charge), R-jay F. Agbon (Programs Committee Head), Lilette D. Torreña (Tours Committee Head), Michelle Pia Anne B. Austria and Erika Joy B. Velasquez (Finance Committee Heads), Jael Victoria D. Supan and Divine Grace B. Sangutan (Logistics Committee Heads), and Shane D. Chug and Faith Abigail K. Co (Publicity and Registration Committee Heads).
The success of this event was accredited to the meticulous preparations by the Open House Team.
“Preparations for the Open House started in June during the summer break. I decided to assign my fellow batchmates as the committee heads (rather than the traditional first years handling the event) so we could start planning early, considering the shift in the academic calendar. More or less, we had four months to prepare. There were several obstacles that came about but I’m proud to say that our team was able to overcome them smoothly,” stated Ms. Atienza in an interview after the event.
“The best aspect of this year’s Open House, really, is the team behind it – efficient, tenacious, and calm under pressure. It was the people that made the planning and the event itself a remarkable success.”
This year’s Open House is the most-attended so far, with more than 200 participants. “I could say that the major attractant for the attendees was the personalization of the tour groups, where we allowed them to register as a ‘barkada’ so that they’d be in the same group during the campus tour.”
Ms. Atienza elaborated, “We added a few activities this year to encourage interaction among the participants, such as the game where all 200+ of them had to arrange themselves alphabetically – a simple ice breaker that could potentially lead to an addition to their network of friends.”
“A favorite of mine for this year was the roaming Instagram border that a lot of the attendees used for photo ops, making a mark for SLCM Open House 2015, especially on social media,” Ms. Atienza added when asked what made this year’s open house unique from the previous ones.
It is undeniable that the highlight of this year’s Open House was the campus tour, as with the previous open house events.
The participants particularly loved the anatomy laboratory station because they got to see an actual cadaver.
They also liked the student life stations because they were able to feel, even just at a certain degree, how to be a student in St. Luke’s.
Another favorite station was the SLCM Library with its mini museum.
The aim of the Open House was to attract potential students – the best students – to enroll in SLCM. Whether this was achieved or not is still uncertain. However, based on the feedback on some of the participants, the Open House was an effective tool to entice undergraduate students to apply in St. Luke’s.
One of the participants said that she can’t wait to study in SLCM. Another one said that SLCM is back at the top of his list of med schools.
Hoping for the best, Ms. Atienza has a short but sweet message for the attendees: “Future Lukans, see you! You won’t regret this.” [x]