ALKHOBAR, 22 August 2004 — If the nursing profession is becoming attractive to poorly paid doctors in the Philippines, so is it to students of the International Philippine School in Alkhobar (IPSA).
Of the school’s 56 senior students who will graduate in March, about 35 percent intend to take up nursing in college.
In a survey interview done by Arab News during the IPSA Career Orientation Seminar last weekend at the Ramada Hotel in Alkhobar, 20 of the graduating students said they prefer to take up the nursing career due to the high demand not only in the Middle East but also in America and Europe.
Of the 20 would-be nurses in IPSA, eight are males.
Fifteen-year-old Ivy Joy Mallare said she wants to be a nurse because it will ensure her to get a job abroad.
“My parents encouraged me to take up nursing for nurses are in demand now here and in other countries,” Mallare said.
Krystalle Dayandante, 16 years old, said she intends to be a doctor but she will to take up nursing first as a steppingstone.
“My dad is a nurse and I also wanted be like him. If God permits, I will continue later to be a pediatrician,” she said.
In the Philippines, hundreds of doctors employed in government hospitals in the provinces, are taking up nursing courses in hopes of securing a job in the United States.
A nurses in the US gets at least $3,000 a month (156,000 pesos), while doctors in the Philippine countryside are paid only about 20,000 pesos.
Children of OFWs prefer to take up courses which will give them greater chances to work abroad like their parents. With the unemployment skyrocketing in the Philippines, OFWs also prefer that their children will work abroad for a better future.
Most of the other IPSA boys, however, said they want to take up engineering, architecture, computer science, or aeronautics. For the girls, their other preference include medicine, business management, and journalism.
During the orientation seminar, Tenessee Valdez, the resource speaker on human resources, stressed that in choosing a career, one must consider first the “emotional quotient,” or EQ.
“It is not always the salary that is to be looked upon when choosing a career. One must also consider if he is right for the job and if he is happy to do that job,” Valdez said.
The other resource speakers were Dr. Nestor Raphael Valenciano on preventive medicine, Neonita Lucena on nursing, Dr. May Lachica on dentistry, Virgilio Evangelista on accountancy, Jose Gie Sinaon on engineering, Jaime del Castillo on architecture, Erwin Miranda on computer technology, and IPSA principal Dr. Pilar Centina-Licupa on statistics, research and evaluation.
