How I Got into LEAPMed
By: Kurt Gutierrez
Tags: Philippines, College Admissions, University Of Santo Tomas, Medical School, Leapmed

Riding shotgun in the car, my phone began to buzz with spams of text messages and missed calls coming from my eldest sister. I was startled at first, primarily for two reasons; one, I rarely get texts nor calls from my sister, and two, the text messages were all in uppercase — I initially thought that there was an emergency back at home.

To my surprise, the texts on the notification screen went from “HOY SAGUTIN MO AKO ASJDGHJKLSDJ,” to “CONGRATS!” — and then it slowly sank in; this was surely something about college admission. I knew that from previously feeding into my college-admission-anxiety-3 AM-web-digging sessions checking on estimated dates for the release of college admission results. Even when my assumption already faced me head-on, I still had doubts, and my heart began to race.

I answered the next volley of calls, but the reception at the time was quite poor, and I couldn’t understand anything beyond choppy voices screaming in the background, and so the calls abruptly ended. Not long after, there it was—a text message containing the link directing to the office of admissions’ “List of qualified LEAPMed Applicants for SY 2020–2021 scheduled to take the Psychological Examination and Interview (December 19, 2019)”.

Anticlimactically, I couldn’t open the link due to poor reception — and so I had to do your-typical-trick of turning the phone’s airplane mode on-and-off to begin searching for better reception. Eventually, on the interchange at Zapote fronting the Alabang Medical Center, my phone’s coverage went from E to LTE, and I was able to open the link. There it was —the UST equivalent of the Dr. Baticulon-coined “annual battle of Promil kids from all over the country” had included my name among the 220 students shortlisted for interview.

I couldn’t believe it. I was one step closer to fast-tracking my “Road to M.D.” With unexplainable joy, I then called a few of my friends to share in the celebration of this accomplishment; simultaneously, I began to receive congratulatory texts from a few of my classmates.

The program was brought to my attention when a former schoolmate got shortlisted for LEAPMed in 2018 — from there, I searched around the internet. I learned that LEAPMED, similar to INTARMED, is an accelerated medical degree program launched by the University of Santo Tomas. The name of UST being attached to a fast-tracked Doctor of Medicine program is undoubtedly a perfect combination; who wouldn’t want to shoot their shot in shortening their road to M.D. in the best, biggest, and brightest medical school?

At the time, applying to the program required you to either be a student from the STEM strand (Thomasians & Non-Thomasians) or a student from the UST-SHS Health Allied strand (Thomasians only) — with a minimum general weighted average of 90% being required for all applicants. One would have to indicate their interest in the program on the application form and pay an extra three thousand pesos on top of the 500 peso USTET application fee — a hefty sum equivalent to applying to the Faculty of Medicine & Surgery of the University. (Note: Some changes may have occurred in the University’s transition from USTET to USTAR)

The Learning Enhanced Accelerated Program for Medicine (LEAPMed) is a 6-year accelerated medical program that leads to a Medical Degree — in hindsight, most would say that this is the UST-equivalent of UP’s well-known INTARMed program.

While the idea of accelerating the path to M.D. holds true for both programs, the two curricula are completely distinct from one another. From my impression, LEAPMed appears to be a hybrid course combining the basic medical sciences and the forte subjects of well-known premed degrees, with subjects like Kinesiology, a PT-forte, Laboratory Medicine, a Medtech-forte — being discussed alongside Anatomy, Physiology, and the like. On the other hand, INTARMED, from its name alone, appears to integrate the basic medical sciences alongside essential liberal arts courses — this I can never say for sure since I’ve never had a full-length discussion with another INTARMed student differentiating the two, maybe one day I’d publish another article dissecting and comparing the two programs.

The following January, I went in for the psychological exam & the interview; within the walls of the San Martin de Porres building were students whose minds and hearts turn into mixing pots of emotions.

On interview day, I was scheduled to come in at 9:45 AM, the second batch for the day — an earlier set of students were interviewed at around 7 AM. I took a seat at the gazebo in front of the Medicine building. Next to me were a mix of students who were either finished with their interview or were preparing for the next — the view was a combination of both cries and laughter, with some jokingly saying “Wala, bagsak na, paalam LEAPMed Hahaha,” and some agonizingly crying in self-doubt, saying the aforementioned statement with greater emotional weight.

Truly enough, emotions are indeed difficult to handle in life events that may make or break your collegiate future.

After waiting in the Medicine Museum, I was sent to one of the lecture rooms to begin the interview.

Why Medicine? If you’re entering medicine to ‘help’ — why not other courses? You can help there too. What’s the most challenging problem that you’ve faced so far and how did you resolve it? What’s your opinion on the recent statements of President Duterte on the Catholic Church?

Thankfully, my interview started and ended enthusiastically— it personally felt like having interesting conversations with relatives using different prompts. But of course, interview experiences are unique to each their own — I can’t speak for the experiences of others.

After a few days, the final list of 90 students was posted. In contrast to how I learned about being shortlisted for the program, the reveal for the final admission list was quite dull. On that day, I was just working on a few of my extracurriculars. I received notifications about the results posted by the admissions office on their website and social media pages. I opened the link, loaded the document, celebrated with a semi-prolonged howl, and returned to work.

Sadly, for the following months, the historic COVID-19 pandemic would hit us all. Out of the 90 names listed on the final list, around 70 to 80 enrolled, a few of those who did not proceed to enroll in the program cited the pandemic as one of the reasons for not pushing through.

On the surface level, being an accelerated medical student seems like a dream that smoothens your path towards becoming a physician. Still, in every spectacular performance, the backstage works the mess to produce magic. Being a LEAPMed student is similar — you enjoy and take pride in being part of the program, and at the same time, struggle alongside your future colleagues; what more can you ask for?

As I get closer to my entry in the 2nd semester of the first year — I hope for nothing but the best.

(Author’s Note: Technical Information on the LEAPMed program must be consulted with the official websites of UST, the information presented here are for narrative purposes only. The views presented here do not represent the institution and the program. The author wrote the article in early 2020 before the USTAR system of admission, do not use this article as a reference for application procedures.)