by Angelo H. Manalo, M.D. – Former Dean, MSU College of Medicine

The Mindanao State University (MSU), being the premier government educations institution in the island of Mindanao in Southern Philippines, is responsible for the development of medical manpower to fill the health needs of the people in medically depressed areas of the region.

Thus in 1984, it opened its College of Medicine in Marawi City and later moved it to Iligan City in 1988 where it is presently located.

VISION: HEALTH FOR ALL MINDANAOANS

MISSION:
1. To provide competent medical practioners for the underserved and medically depressed areas of the MINSUPALA (Mindanao-Sulu-Palawan) region.

2. To build a center for medical education and researched whose output will be primarily geared towards the development and upliftment of the standards of medical care in the MINSUPALA region.

3. To develop a network of medical and health care delivery system in the MINSUPALA region in cooperation with the Department of Health and other agencies.

4. To provide the opportunities for Muslim students and other member of the MINSUPALA cultural communities as well as poor but deserving students of the MINSUPALA region to become doctors of medicine and serve the areas from which they come.

To achieve these ends and to ensure that the medical education which their graduates get are relevant to the needs of the area, the medical school has embarked on an innovative curriculum where community-based experience and exposure is given as much if not more weight as the hospital-based learning experience which predominate in the much more traditional medical schools.

The problem-based learning approach has been adopted as the primary learning strategy in a fully integrated medical curriculum making the school a pioneer in community-based and problem-based learning medical education in the country.