omg.. how disappointing.. hope this issue be clarified soon.. not a good image for a catholic oriented school.. i am completely dismayed..

It is certainly odd that weight should be used as a criterion for determining who’s fit to enter a nursing school. I would have understood weight as being a criterion for screening applicants for flight attendants, but certainly not for nursing. And I don’t think that San Juan de Dios would have specified in a document that they’re only accepting students in their nursing school who have their accepted BMI or weight range.

Was she able to inform the dean of the college about it? Or was the college dean the one responsible for such discrimination?

it may even be a blessing in disguise. there are BETTER nursing schools than san juan de dios na mukhang public hospital sa dumi’t baho. manila doctors, st. paul, ust, dela salle, and up manila to name a few. you just might end up thanking that oaf for nudging you in the right direction.

oh my! i just read that email THAT WAS HORRIBLE! Iam a Nursing Graduate, and I studied at SAN JUAN DE DIOS from first yr up to second yr first sem, on my batch my of us was not accepted for the second sem because we did not meet the grade cota, but for some reason, I my self was one of them and I was complaning because I know many of us doesn’t deserve to be “out” what happened was, npag initan ung section nmin, and many of us were 77 and below and konti lng natira, it waS SO UNFAIR kx ung iba na “hindi nila tinanggal was caught CHEATING BY A CLINICAL INSTRUCTOR AND YET NO SUNCTION HAD BEEN DONE.” We all Believe there PALAKASAN SYSTEM and DAPAT ME BACKER KA S LOOB. we were really upset and frustrated at that time. anyweiz, that was before I am just grateful that the School/University that I graduated from was fair enough, we really learn a lot. From that email, i was so shock that someone from the Admin said that to a kid, that was really traumatic, of course that kid will be depressed! the one who intervied her should say sorry to her, WALA XANG KARAPATAN pra SABIHIN un, if he/she wanted to say that, he/she should have said that in a subtle way, in a nice way so that the young lady will not felt insulted. the admin of SJDF should do something about that.

I tried to read the email (as well as the comments) with unbiased eyes, but some things just didn’t sit well with me. The first thing I noted was the fuss on the weight. A lot of people may not understand what is the big thing with weight. But the truth is, we are future health care professionals (and yes, I am a Nursing student at San Juan de Dios Educational Foundation, Inc.). We are supposed to promote health and well-being to our clients. And the first requisite is that we should be models to our clients, so that they may not only visualize what is ideal for them, but they may further be convinced of the pressing need to maintain health. And may I also remind you that every school has its own standards.

There’s also the imago dei and discrimination complaint in the email. I am fairly sure that the in-charge of processing the applications told the daughter in a nice way about her being overweight. Where is discrimination in stating that fact? It’s not like the in-charge said that she was obese, and will never be accepted in SJDEFI. Everybody who applies for the school is reminded to watch his/her weight. Heck, I even have classmates who still get the reminders all the time. Let’s face it, in an institution like San Juan de Dios, ‘overweight’ is nothing but a clinical word. It does not mean that people here think less of the overweight or the obese. We are not so barbaric or narrow-minded to think like that.

Then there’s also the GRADE QUOTA. Every school has that. It just so happened that our school places great emphasis on the need to maintain acceptable grades. There’s nothing wrong with that. And if I may say so, it’s the students’ responsibility to study and work hard to get high grades. GRading in San Juan de Dios is actually an objective process. The only thing left to the teacher’s discretion is the attitude. If the student studies well enough and gets high grades in all examinations, then there’d be virtually no way for that student to fail.