History of rtrmf

 

           FOUNDED in 1980 through the sustaining initiative of Leyte Governor Benjamin Romualdez, the major thrust of the college is to train students to a high level of competence as primary health care physicians not only in the region but also, and especially, in other depressed areas as well.

        Strongly guided by its basic philosophy that essential medical care is God's given right to all people, it upholds steadfastly that good health is primordial to the preservation of the Philippine political and national integrity. It also believes that health maintenance is not only an institutional concern of hospitals, medical centers and colleges, but of all people, and is a basic requirement to growth and prosperity. As a learning institution, it strongly believes on quality medical education, and thus, carefully selects in the tradition of service and excellence of its students and faculty.

             The college includes the usual departments: gross-clinical anatomy, biochemistry and human nutrition, physiology, pathology, microbiology and parasitology, pharmacology and therapeutics, preventive and community medicine, surgery, pediatrics, medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, and EENT. Each department is headed and staffed by highly-competent chairman with equally competent and complementing leading practitioners and professors.

             The four-year curriculum of the college leading to the degree of Doctor of Medicine has been geared and designed to afford its students a firm grasp on the basic sciences, enriched and reinforced by actual clinical training.
   
         In pursuit thereof, the College operates on a consortium, availing of the facilities and expertise of medical practitioners and specialists of the Makati Medical Center, the University of the Philippines Institute of Health Sciences, the Daniel Z. Romualdez Memorial Hospital, the Bethany Hospital, to mention but a few, to provide its students the most advanced medical technology availing in the country with a good balance in community medicine under the tutelage of highly competent medical mentors.             

        The first building of the school was located in a six-hectare lot, a twin-storey brick building that faces the major thoroughfares of Justice Romualdez and Sto. Niņo Streets.

         At present, the college is presently located in a three-storey concrete and naturally-ventilated building within the Bethany Hospital compound in the City of Tacloban. It can easily be reached either by jeepneys, or motorcabs at any point of the city, while Tacloban is accessible by boats, planes and luxurious buses from Manila and other major cities and capitals of the country.

           

       ON September 25, 1999, the RTR Hospital was blessed and inaugurated. Located beside the RTRMF College of Science in Calanipawan, Tacloban City. The spacious hospital facility with modern and functional architecture  is equipped with state-of-the-art medical, surgical, laboratory and radiologic equipments. It has also a rehabilitation department. The hospital is a boon to our patients, staff and medical/paramedical students.

           The First Board of Trustees was composed of Dr. Constantino P. Manahan, chairman; Dr. Roque Yutangco, president; Dr. Juanita Zagala, treasurer, Dr. Anacoreta Dacuycuy, asst. treasurer and Dr. Vicente Arguelles, Dr. Jose Caedo, Dr. Manuel Roxas, Dr. Julio Dolorico, Atty. Tantuico, members.With the death of the Chairman, Dr. Constantino P. Manahan, reorganization of the BOT took place. Dr. Romeo Gustilo assumed the chairmanship with Dr. Jose Caedo as vice-chairman, Dr. Roque Yutangco as president, Dr. Anacoreta Dacuycuy as treasurer and Dr. Vicente Tantuico, Atty. Andrea dela Cueva, as members.

             Rural practice has always been stressed and eight months of the clinical clerkship is spent at the Eastern Visayas Regional Medical Center, the regional hospital whose patients come mostly from the rural areas.

            The school also underlines the importance of modern medical technology by giving the students opportunity to train for four months at the Makati Medical Center, one of the leading general hospitals in the country.

            Today, most of it's graduates have lived up to this commitment to the community by returning to work in EVRMC and in various government hospitals in the region.