THE FACULTY of Medicine and Surgery kicked off celebrations marking its sesquicentennial in 2021 with groundbreaking rites for a new building.
Acting Rector Fr. Richard Ang, O.P. broke ground together with Medicine Dean Ma. Lourdes Maglinao and Regent Fr. Angel Aparicio, O.P. in the presence of top Medicine alumni last Thursday.
Maglinao expressed her gratitude to all Thomasian physicians and said the new building was “proof that a vision can become a provision and a dream can become reality.”
“Let us show we have UST: unity, solidarity and tenacity to aspire for better days and years ahead and do everything we can to make our future everything it can be and make UST Faculty of Medicine and Surgery at par with global standards in medical education,” she said.
The new building, to be named after Saints Cosmas and Damian, patron saints of the faculty, will be an eight-storey building that will house simulation and research facilities, a learning and study center for medicine students, a faculty lounge and an auditorium.
It will occupy the parking lot beside the Tan Yan Kee Student Center and in front of the Miguel de Benavides Library.
Rodolfo Ventura, architect of the new building, said planning, finalization, bidding and mobilization should be completed by the first quarter of the year so that construction would begin before June.
“We are making some adjustments and then after the adjustments, the finalization. Engineering comes in and then after that we submit to FMO (Facilities Management Office), and then bidding will start again after that mobilization, then the construction itself,” Ventura told the Varsitarian.
Medicine administrators buried a time capsule that contained the building’s blueprint, a rosary, an icon, the prayer of Saints Cosmas and Damian, blessed salt, a stethoscope, and the newspaper of the day.
The UST Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, the oldest medical school in the Philippines, traces its beginnings to the “Facultad de Medicina y Farmacia,” which opened on May 28, 1871 by Spanish decree.
Surviving the Philippine revolution against Spain, the war against the United States and the Japanese occupation during World War 2, UST Medicine has become a Center of Excellence for Medical Education, producing the most number of medical graduates and topnotchers in medicine board exams.
