Size of the faculty at present

Title

Creator

De Ocampo, Germiniano

Language

English

Year

1961

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

SIZE OF THE FACULTY AT PRESENT* GEMINIANO DE OCAMPO, F.P.C.S. COilege of Medi.Cine University of the Philippines A discussion on the size of the faculty at present poses the question - are we understaffed or overstaffed? Before proceeding, however, to express my thoughts on this question I would 3.lso like to state some of my views and to repeat some of the objectives of the teaching staff of the College of Medicine. We are supposed to be here to teach, to serve and to search, that is for research. And as President Sinco has expressed in one of his communications to the faculty, the hallmark of a university is not in the number of Colleges nor in the number of students nor in the number of the faculty but in the research work that it is doing. Another thought of President Sinco in our last University Council meeting is about the College of Education. If I got it right, he seems to have the objective that the College of Education of the University of the Philippines should be made the leader of all colleges of education and to train more trainers in education. I presented those two objectives because I think that the College of Medicine of the University of the Philippines should have the same objective as ·the College of Education - to be the leader of the colleges of medicine in this country and to train trainers or educators in medicine. Another objective is to give ample time for the faculty members to do research work. Under these premises and in my personal experiences in the Department of Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat, I think that with the present number the faculty is not overstaffed; in fact it is probably understaffed in comparison with those existin'g in similar colleges in the United States if these two objectives I have mentioned are *Delivered during the Fourth Teaching lnstitule (The Teachin1 of Sur· aery), College of ·Medicine, April lb. 1959 at the Philippine General Hospital Science Hali. 67 68 ACTA MEDICA PHILlPPINA considered; viz., to give more time to research other than teaching as well as to make this College an A-1 college to train educators in the field of medicine. I understand that this holds true not only iD the E.E.N.T. Department, but also in other departments, especially the basic departments which are more understaffed than the clinical departments One of the reasons that might be thought of why this is so is that it is hard to attract our graduates to go to the· basic departments. Why? Because mainly of material considerations. Now, the question arises - if the faculty of the College of Medicine may be considered understaffed for its purposes, how can we remedy the situation? Some of the thoughts that come to me are the following: The first is the scouting for prospective teachers. Sometimes we would find a student who may be good material for teaching and we would like to attract him but there would be no post and that particular student after graduating cannot wait. Another thing is the material consideration in the clinical departments. From statistics furnished by the Secretary of the College of Medicine, nonsalaried members of the staff in most of the medical colleges in the United States constitute 48 per cent of the members of the faculty, whereas, here in our College of Medicine, only about 28 per cent are non-salaried staff members. In other words, as far as that point is concerned, we may take advantage of more non-salaried members in staffing our faculty but of the right kind, of course. Another problem after attracting a prospective member of the faculty is when to recommend him for appointment. Many times, the head of the department or the Dean of the College cannot wait until there is a vacancy. If he is good material, the head would rather recommend him with or without salary. We well know that there are so many other attractions outside the medical school, and therefore, the timing of the recommendation mainly depends on the availability of the material. As far as holding the faculty, I do not know whether this is mentioned in some of the subsequent topics, but there are some considerations as to how to hold the faculty that we already have. There is the question of wheFOURTH TEACHING INSTITUTE 69 ther or not to allow them to have connections with other teaching institutions. This has been an issue that has probably occupied the minds of the members of the faculty, especially those in the clinical departments, and particularly the non-salaried members. As long as we can see to it that these non-salaried members of the faculty of the clinical departments are given the opportunity and the liberty to comply with their commitments as members of the faculty and provided they have no connections with other colleges that would in one way or another contradict the policies of our college, it seems probably better to hold them or to give them the choice. Let us have more "esprit de corps" in the College of Medicine, that sense of belonging to a faculty, that is, whether egoistically or not, considered to be the best medical faculty in this country. This is certainly something to hold some of the members - the feeling that he belongs to the faculty of the University of the Philippines College of Medicine which is considered well above any other similar faculty in this country.

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