Rizal's Teachings and Their Impact on APMed Students' Perspectives on National Service

The Philippines continues to face a huge shortage and uneven distribution of healthcare workers. This becomes more serious with the constant outmigration of medical professionals in the country. Despite the extensive literature on the value of the Rizal course in fostering nationalism, little was known about how these ideals influence students in medicine-track programs who will soon occupy various important roles in the country’s healthcare system. This study tried to determine the impact of the Life and Works of Jose Rizal (GRizal) course on Accelerated Pathway for Medicine (APMed) students’ perspective towards national service. This study used a quantitative descriptive design where a 4-point Likert scale survey was administered to 44 first year APMed students to measure their civic responsibility and willingness to serve the nation after learning GRizal. Results showed that Rizal’s teachings had a significant positive effect, wherein civic responsibility produced an overall mean of 3.08 (Agree), while willingness to engage in national service produced a mean of 3.01 (Agree), with 23 APMed-I students showcased strong agreement to provide their service in underserved communities. These findings demonstrated that the GRizal course effectively increased social awareness, reflection on ethical and medical issues, and nationalistic values among the medical students. In the context of a country that currently faces an issue with the rising amount of brain drain, the course’s capacity to promote civic consciousness and national commitment affirmed its continued relevance in medical education. It was recommended that future research should examine if these strengthened positive perspectives would continue to medical training and into professional practice.

Jose Rizal; national service; civic responsibility; APMed students; medical education

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