RECTOR Fr. Rolando de la Rosa, O.P. has called on new UST doctors not to enrich themselves by catering to the interests of the pharmaceutical industry.
In a thanksgiving Mass last August 25, De la Rosa said Thomasian doctors should observe a “high degree of respectability.”
“A doctor is worthy of his colleagues’ respect if he has integrity, moral uprightness, professional competence and intellectual honesty,” De la Rosa said in his homily.
He advised them to “still keep the idealism despite prevalent talks about the deterioration of the medical profession due to corruption in the profession today.”
“Medicine prescriptions to a certain brand of drug are used as means of gaining extra income,” he said.
Nevertheless, De la Rosa said the 335 Thomasian who passed the recent board exams would conquer the medical profession as graduates of one of the top medical schools in the country.
“Topping and passing the board exams does not tell the whole story,” De la Rosa said. “Its importance can only be evaluated in terms of the knowledge and understanding that you have acquired, the sacrifices you have made, and the love that you have developed for your line of work.”
“I am challenging you, remaining men and women of Medicine, to come forward and create the needed change,” he added.
UST posted a 99-percent passing rate in the August 2009 Physician board exams, higher than the 95-percent average last year.
The mass was followed by the Thomasian physician’s oath-taking ceremony led by Medicine Dean Ma. Graciela Gonzaga. Adrienne Jesse A. Maleficio
