|Participating cities (LC's)||Manila|
|Languages||English, Filipino (based on Tagalog)|
|Currency (how much is a Bigmac?)||Philippine Peso (PHP), A Bigmac meal costs around PhP135|
|Time zone||GMT +8|
|Number of Doctors and beds per 1000 people||---|
|Member of IFMSA since...||1985|
|Number of incoming students per year||Around 4|
|Who are our NEO's||Glenn Wilson Ng (In/Out)|
|Our official website / Forum / Facebook group||http://www.amsaphil.org/|
We welcome you to our beautiful country, the Pearl of the Orient Seas!
Come and experience our medical exchange program, where everyone will welcome you with a warm embrace. You’ll definitely feel the love and care of a second family.
Visit us and enjoy the beauty of the Philippines.
We hope to see you in the Philippines soon!
An archipelago of 7,107 islands, the Philippines stretches from the south of China to the northern tip of Borneo. Its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire and its tropical climate make the Philippines prone to earthquakes and typhoons but have also endowed the country with natural resources and made it one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world. The Philippines is broadly categorized into three main geographical division: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.
The country has over a hundred ethnic groups and a mixture of foreign influences which have molded a unique Filipino culture.
For more information regarding the Philippines, you can visit Department of Tourism Philippines
Health care in the Philippines varies from high class (e.g., St Luke's Medical Center, Quezon City), to non-existent (many rural municipalities). Most of the national burden of health care is taken up by private health providers.
Medical practitioners, nurses, nursing aides, midwives, caregivers, and health administrators, can all train for their profession in the Philippines. However, most cannot practice outside the Philippines without additional formal study and practical training, usually in the country they choose to migrate to.
There is no requirement in the Philippines for causes of death to be medically determined prior to registration of a death, so national statistics as to causes of death in the Philippines cannot be accurately substantiated. In the provinces, especially in places more remote from registries, births and deaths are often not recorded unless some family need arises, such as entry into college. When there is no legal process needed to pass on inheritance, the recording of deaths is viewed as unnecessary by the family.
Large areas of the Philippines do not have daily access to any pharmaceuticals at all.
The UST Hospital, is a non-stock, non-profit hospital. Its primary mission is to provide the best quality healthcare possible, especially to our less fortunate brothers and sisters.
The UST Hospital trains young men and women in the medical arts and science, through clinical exposure and research, and ultimately molds them towards the professional care of patients, with compassion and love.
The hospital currently maintains 460 dedicated beds for charity or clinical patients. These are financially sustained by just 352 private patient beds, of which the resulting revenues support and delimit the extent of charity to the sick and poor in the clinical or charity beds.
Here is the link to the hospital's website: University of Santo Tomas Hospital
A candidate for medical school must first earn a bachelor’s degree (4 or 5 years of college) with credits in certain required subjects. The candidate must also take and pass the National Medical Admission Test (NMAT), the national entrance exam for all medical schools in the Philippines.
Medical schools in the Philippines are graduate schools offering a four-year professional degree, the Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree. After earning the M.D. degree, the degree holder must complete a one-year internship program qualifying the candidate to take the licensure exam for medical doctors in the Philippines. Some universities offer the M.D. degree with a five-year curriculum, already including the internship program.
The licensure exams for physicians (board examination for doctors) are administered by the Board of Medicine, a professional regulatory body under the general control and supervision of the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) of the Philippines.
After graduation from medical school and passing the board exam for doctors, a Filipino doctor is labelled as a general medical practitioner.
The Filipino culture reflects the complexity of the history of the Philippines. It is a combination of Eastern and Western cultures. The Filipino is basically of Malay stock with a sprinkling of Chinese, American, Spanish, and Arab blood. From a long history of Western colonial rule, interspersed with the visits of merchants and traders, evolved a people of a unique blend of east and west, both in appearance and culture.
The Filipinos are divided geographically and culturally into regions, and each regional group is recognizable by distinct traits and dialects - the sturdy and frugal llocanos of the north, the industrious Tagalogs of the central plains, the carefree Visayans from the central islands, and the colorful tribesmen and religious Moslems of Mindanao. Tribal communities can be found scattered across the archipelago. The Philippines has more than 111 dialects spoken, owing to the subdivisions of these basic regional and cultural groups.
The country is marked by a true blend of cultures; truly in the Philippines, East meets West. The background of the people is Indonesian and Malay. There are Chinese and Spanish elements as well. The history of American rule and contact with merchants and traders culminated in a unique blend of East and West, both in the appearance and culture of the Filipinos, or people of the Philippines.
The exchange student will be staying at either a dormitory, an apartment, or with a host family. The student will be given money for food, but only from Monday to Friday. Food during the weekend and other personal expenses shall be shouldered by the student.
The Philippine Exchange Program (PEP) seeks to envelop the student in a warm embrace that is the trademark of the Filipino. It seeks to impart a sense of how it is to be in another world, with another set of traditions, and thought. Combining a sense of adventure and the thrill of the richness of the experience in this paradoxical country, the student gains a novel understanding of himself and of others. At the end of the program, the student is left with a feeling that he/she has gained a second home, as well as a second family, and a new set of ideas, experiences, and friends. During your stay here, there will be times when you will be alone, so you are highly encouraged to be independent adventurers!
In a country that is made up of over 7,100 islands and islets, travel has a lot to do with transportation. Rest assured that options are endless for getting around, some typical and other quite unique. Options vary from air, sea, and land.
In Metro Manila, the fastest and most economical way of commuting is via the elevated trains called the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Metro Manila Rail Transit (MRT) system. The LRT operates from 5AM-10PM, while the MRT operates from 5:30AM-10:30PM.
Buses and taxis are recommended for short distances where the LRT trains do not pass.
A horse-driven carriage called Kalesa, a more elegant means of traveling in most major cities, is more commonly offered as a “fun ride” in many public parks across the country.
Inter-island ships connect Manila to major ports in the country via roll-on/roll-off liners with fast seacrafts and other ferry services connecting to smaller islands. Domestic airlines which offer budget fares fly to tourist spots, island resorts and urban centers.
The Philippines has a tropical climate and is usually hot and humid. There are three seasons: March to May is the hot and dry season, June to October is the rainy season, and November to February is the cool season. The average temperatures is around 78F / 32C with a humidity of around 77%.
Seeing the average temperature of our country, it would be recommended to bring light, casual clothes.
All over Philippines, you will find so many things to do, see and experience, you may not have enough time to do everything. Philippines is full of interesting places, where one can easily pass many hours enjoying the entertainment that can be found in Philippines.
The are also a wide range of bars, cafes and clubs all over Philippines. Manila and tourist resorts in Philippines hava some of the most popular clubs in the country. Whatever type of bar or club you are looking for, you will find it in the Philippines.
Schedules must be arranged in advance. Below are the conditions for our exchange program in the Philippines.
Level of studies: Student must have started Clinical courses (preferably in the last year of studies). Special arrangements for preclinical exposure.
Type of Clerkship:
Duration: 4 weeks for clinical (8 weeks can be arranged)
Towns and Periods: University of Santo Tomas Hospital - Manila (see website USTH). We accept exchanges all year round except for the months of March and April.
Application documents & deadline: The organization needs at least 2 months in advance to process the application. Documents needed aside from application form, should be submitted at least 2 months before the desired dates of exchange by digital document to email@example.com:
Additional requirements may also be needed such as Letter of Support, Transcript of Records. Insurance certificate is also a requirement.
To learn more about the exchange conditions, please check this link: AMSA-Philippines Exchange Conditions
Interested students may contact the National Exchange Officer via firstname.lastname@example.org