A Doctor Tops the 2006 Graduating Class
After final grade calculations, it was clear that Dr. Niño Ismael Pastor will graduate as valedictorian in 2006.
Niño is a physician by profession and he holds office at the Department of Health (DOH). He is not your typical physician, though. Niño is a public health specialist in applied epidemiology at the DOH’s National Center for Disease Prevention and Control. Although a medical doctor, Niño’s program with UPOU was not related to health programs. He took the Diploma in Research and Development Management (DR&DM) program.Niño decided to enroll at UPOU because he wanted to pursue higher education without leaving his work. He believed that UPOU offered the best distance learning standards for the program that he really wanted.
According to Niño, DR&DM has helped him very much in his work. What he learned from this program has guided him in developing a systems framework for disability and health. The DOH did not have this framework when he joined it, and had problems when accounting for its performance in the sector for persons with disabilities (PWD). The systems framework that Niño developed has become an “in-thing” in DOH and is now literally being copied in application to other health issues and programs.
Balancing work and study was not much an issue for Niño. According to Niño, he does not delineate work and study “as if they are like fire and water.” What he does is relate the two mentally. While working he uses the basic concepts from his studies and vice versa. He considers his studies and work to supplement and complement each other. “Time was just a kind of virtuality that conformed to how you push certain activities and suppressed others,” says Niño.
One of his memorable and rewarding experiences in UPOU was when he was able to put in actual use the concepts he learned from his courses into actual situation. It was during one seminar on PWD when he served as a panelist to discuss constraints on program development. While waiting for the participants to arrive, he read his Reader in DR&DM. During the seminar, the strengths and weaknesses that were identified by the participants were the ones predicted and identified in the Reader. “It was a feeling of sudden empowerment knowing why systems fail,” says Niño.
When asked if he would recommend UPOU to his colleagues and friends, a definite yes was his answer.
Niño’s biggest wish for UPOU is for it to offer more programs. He also suggests that UPOU should store copies of the discussion boards since these were learning milestones for students like him. UPOU should also foster mentoring and coaching so that its graduates will truly benefit from their distance studies as well as the university also benefiting from their graduates at their respective jobs. He also recommends that UPOU apply for international accreditation as well, to be the gold standard in distance learning in Asia and in the whole world. (Joane V. Serrano, FMDS)
