Project Isip

Project ISIP was established in 2017 with the ongoing aim to provide health screenings and education to rural communities in the Philippines by collaborating with our local partner, the University of St. La Salle (USLS).

Each year, Project ISIP brings together a group of medical students to Bacolod City, Philippines, where they work hand-in-hand with local partners, community organisations and hospitals. For the next intake, the group will consist of 4 M2s and 4 M1s, along with TTSH staff.

This year, in collaboration with the University of St. La Salle (USLS) School of Nursing and a team of seven volunteer doctors (including two paediatricians), we conducted a medical mission at Barangay Granada – a village in Bacolod City. Through our health screening portion of our medical mission, we were able to identify conditions in our clients that are perhaps undiagnosed or assist in the follow up of known conditions. Then, our clients are able to start on or continue managing their various conditions through medications prescribed by our volunteer doctors. We, as medical students, are heavily involved every step of the way, from briefing our volunteers on their roles, to independently taking histories from clients prior to their consultations and much more. With that, there were plenty of opportunities during the trip to apply medical knowledge, hone physical examinations and clinical procedural skills, as well as witness unique medical cases such as children with chromosomal abnormalities and adults with heart murmurs.

Since the pioneer batch, we have also maintained annual engagements with the Amity Volunteer Fire Brigade. Each year, we conduct teaching sessions for volunteers, focusing on topics relevant to their roles as first responders like cardiology, anatomy, and first aid workshops. This year, we also introduced a bilateral teaching exchange, which not only gave us the opportunity to teach, but to also learn more about Amity’s fire fighting facilities and training processes.

We also have enriching attachments at the USLS School of Medicine and Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital (CLMMRH). These experiences offered us an inside look at the Filipino healthcare system - its strengths, challenges, and the resilience of its practitioners.

A new addition this year was our focus on dialogue sessions. At Barangay Mandalagan, we sat down with residents to better understand their healthcare needs, ensuring our efforts remain relevant and community-driven.

New volunteers can look forward to many exciting developments in the upcoming trip. With the success of our inaugural medical mission held at Barangay Granada in June 2025, Project ISIP aims to continue in this direction and carry out more medical missions next year onwards with roles extending to rotating between the different stations in addition to history taking and physical exams. For our next trip to Bacolod, we hope to reintroduce home visits as part of our programme in order to gain exposure to the challenges our clients may face as well as render some medical assistance to those who are unable to travel to our main medical mission site. We also hope to deepen our partnership with the USLS College of Medicine, interweaving more dialogue sessions with the school leaders as well as greater interaction and immersion with the medical students. Lastly, building on the bilateral teaching exchange with Amity, we intend to learn more about their emergency medical response capabilities through teachings, live demos and hands-on experiences.