The Freudian Slip Of A Bacolodnon

It can't be stopped this migration of professional doctors outside of the Philippines. Every school year, many doctors are enrolling themselves in nursing schools and at least a hundred of these nurses a day leave the country to work elsewhere. The main reason really is that there is good pay and fair compensation. The demand for health workers in Europe and the U.S. is high and the promise of a more secure future for the family is so tempting that if it were a sin, Hell would be overcrowded. This predicament has led to lesser doctors to attend to the ever growing population of patients. Instead of spending more time in their clinics doing consultations, doctors would spend more time studying for their nursing course. This results to lesser time spent in the hospitals thus lesser income for the hospitals and therefore the gradual shut down of these hospitals. The medical profession has lost its luster. Every year, the number of doctors applying for residency are declining. In contr...

I have been working my ass off for more than a year now. A year free of charge with more than a hundred 24 hour duty-days in the hospital. A year of hard labor and mental torture. A year of pressures and tensions and stresses. I haven't received anything for it. No fulfillment. No reward. Yes, perhaps one can argue that the reward comes in the gratitude of the patients I have met. Perhaps one can argue that having received the outstanding junior intern for medicine is one of those rewards. But forgive me if I become cynical at the moment. There are days that I feel regret. There are brief moments in the middle of work that I fancied having a different life. Worse, there have been days I wish to have a different life. For all this time I have not given much time for myself, haven't pampered myself. I have abused myself, gave no regard for self and have displaced my personal ambitions for a road which I now feel has only been imposed upon me by circumstances, most of which I fear...

Dinner with homecoming boy Ja Villaruz Bayen Trademark Bs Bio reunion Class 2002 Bayen Trademark It has been a long while since my bs Bio batchmates had a reunion. Good thing Juan Villaruz a.k.a. Ja came home from the States last April and decided to throw a dinner out with his bs bio classmates before he left for the States last May 11 again. It was the first time I sat down and had dinner with old friends. Fun times for everyone! Present were Jane Leong who is already a proud mother, Ellen Lopez, who was top 17th in the nursing board exams, Gabby Peñacuba, Bel Caram, me and my wife and of course Ja along with his brother and a friend. Thanks Ja for the Dinner and enjoy yourselves there in Chicago!

It was supposed to be a case presentation regarding appendicitis and appendectomy but an hour and a half later, we 14 PGIs realized no consultant was coming so we spent the moment at the Board Room photocopying our I.D.s (for our application for a savings account) and taking pictures of ourselves. Using MacMac's state of the art cellphone, all 14 of us posed before the camera a la telenovela primer. Boys Line (L-R): Pax, Melvin, Gerard, Bayen, Mark A., Mark J.,Andy. Girls Line (L-R): Joanne, Gabby, Leah, Bel, Tin, Con and Ken. Bayen Trademark Same Serious Moment, with the girls on the seats this time. Bayen Trademark So after all the formalities, it's to play! Bayen Trademark Right after the "pseudo-conference", we all went upstairs in our On-call room and continued the photosessions. hmmm... what's up with Leah?? Bayen Trademark Today we also celebrated Bel's birthday (who is unfortunately not in this pic but just worth mentioning. oops...she's right t...

Fiction or Real? Bayen Trademark Dan Brown's the Da Vinci Code has become the most controversial novel in our present time and has just become one of the most controversial films of this century. Many readers and movie goers dismiss this novel/movie as just a work of fiction, something to entertain us. To quote non-verbatim many outspoken appreciators of this book, this is not really a forefront assault against the Catholic Church or Christianity as a whole. It is just a fiction, an imagination and a pure work of literature which may have biblical references. it is not, as they say, anti-Christ or blasphemy. It is just a story. Here lies the trouble that is brought about by this Code. While many readers can easily dismiss this as pure fiction, Dan Brown, the author of the book, does not entirely think so: In a controversial introductory note, Brown writes that "all descriptions of documents and secret rituals are accurate." But are they? Here's what Dan Brown based ...

Grad Ball April 7, 2006 Bayen Trademark More than a month ago, the pioneer class of the College of Medicine USLS held the first ever graduation Ball. It was supposed to be a historic night. It was the first formal occasion for the first batch to graduate from the first Medical School in the Province of Negros Occidental. It was the first night of nights to come and it was the first step in a series of stepping stones intended as a tradition for generations to follow. Personally, it was my first grad ball. I never had a JS Prom during my high school and even during college. It was supposed to be formal but once you a gather a batch like us, it wouldn't be long for a formal moment to become informal. So after dropping my son off in my parents' internet cafe, my wife and I went to the grad ball at L' Fisher Hotel. We were the first to be there and I intended it to be since I wanted to do a dry run of the video presentations we would be having during the evening's program. ...

Life is tough and perhaps tougher when you are a post graduate intern a.k.a. PGI. For a PGI, the day begins as early as 7 a.m. when the intern does his usual morning rounds from the hospital basement, where the wards are usually located, up to the highest floor (in our case, the 5th floor) where all of the private rooms, ICUs and nursery are located. He has to finish his rounds by 8 a.m. and turn in all of his progress notes (daily updates of the patient's condition in the hospital) inside the charts just in time for endorsements. Endorsement is that time when the intern who was previously on 24 hour duty informs the incoming intern on 24 hour duty, the consultants and the rest of the PGIs about the number and kinds of admissions during the past 24 hours. The intern is expected therefore to know all of his admitted patients, their history, physical examinations, even latest laboratory results and the diagnosis and other differential diagnoses. Endorsements however do not just end t...

I shall never know for certain when I shall die and my ever fear is that when that day comes, I have only lived half the life that I am suppose to live. Below therefore is a list of things I wish to achieve before I cross over. 1. Visit Disney Land 2. Visit a country outside of the Philippines - done already (Australia) 3. Tour around the country 4. Get married in a church 5. Go bungee jumping 6. Drive a car of my own 7. Write a book and have it published 8. Pursue a hobby in photography 9. Learn to speak another language (preferrably Spanish) 10. Do a pilgrimage in the Holy Land and Rome 11. Shake hands with the Philippine President (or Prime Minister in case there is a shift to parliament) 12. Climb a volcano 13. Watch the Olympics live 14. Build a house near the beach 15. Learn to scuba dive 16. Teach 17. Master the piano 18. Make a difference 19. Write a song 20. See snow 21. Sleep in a treehouse 22. Run for office 23. Meet a saint

For four years in med school we have been trained to become professional doctors equipped with the skills and knowledge necessary to function as a physician in our human society. For four years we were taught to master the human anatomy, right to its smallest details. We were taught to master the human physiology and understand how the human body functions down to its molecular level. We were taught to master the science of drugs and medications, its pharmacology and how its chemistry affect and alter our human bodies. After having done so, we have been made to think that the things we learned in med school are enough to make us the best skilled and most proficient doctors our society can ever have. However, our exposure in the hospital, whether it would be government-owned or a private institution, has destoryed this primary belief. While it cannot be denied that knowledge about anatomy and physiology and the basics of medical science is important and is the foundation of every doctor...

The Eye Bayen Trademark . Tropical storm Chanchu slammed into the Philippines overnight causing flash floods and landslides that forced the evacuation of hundreds of villagers, according to disaster relief officials. The storm, the first to hit the Philippines this year, also left 4,500 people stranded in key ports in the central Visayas and eastern Bicol regions after the coast guard suspended ferry operations. Families from several villages in the town of Sogod, in the central island province of Southern Leyte, were also evacuated to safer ground after heavy rains caused a landslide that cut off a main highway, provincial governor Rosette Lerias told AFP. At least 11 villages with about 1,000 families in Sogod had been isolated, with one vital bridge also impassable, Lerias said. Another 40 families in the town of Macrohon were also evacuated after heavy flooding, she said. "It has been raining really hard, and we had about 130 millimeters (five inches) of rainfall yesterday alo...

What has been my first week like as a PGI? It has been a week-long roller coster ride for me personally. After a month of furlow from work and pressure, it's back to the factory again, but this time only in a much better suit. Not only that, you get three free meals a day, have time to take a bath in the morning and still look OD(on duty) even if you're FD (from duty). But it has to take at least one week for the body to re-adjust and shift from vacation mode to work mode. We were criticized for choosing the more lenient hospital as our hospital for training. Among the leading hospitals in the city, BOLMSH is perhaps less "toxic" when it comes to work load and pressure. CLMMRH is bluntly likened to the fiery shores of Hell, where souls experience beyond mortal torments and tortures. Riverside Medical Center is almost like CLMMRH but you get paid for the tortures they give you. BOLMSH is Paradiso! We PGIs may not remember every admitting orders we need to remember but ...

Day 4 - I was on call and as an on-call intern, my post is at the OR. Being true to my benigness in the OR, I had no scheduled OR in the a.m. Instead, I assisted in an open reduction, internal fixation of a fractured left humerus, (closed and segmental) in the afternoon. The rest of the morning was left making rounds with my patients. After the OR, I went to check the histories and progress notes of the clerks (4th year medical students). I wasn't able to attend their regular afternoon didactics so I wasn't able to give the quiz I prepared. The topic was on thyroid. Today is a good day. Perhaps a much better day than yesterday. I slept the moment I arrived home but woke up to answer a phone call from my uncle, Tito Lorenzo. My cousin Angelie has this benign bone growth on her knee area and she is scheduled for an OR. X-ray findings reveal osteochondroma, a benign bone cyst. She was initially scheduled this June but her father wanted it much earlier so it won't be a hassle f...

Day Two - it was my first 24-hour duty. During the entire duty, we were able to admit 4 patients: a case of inguinal hernia, a case of an ovarian new growth, a case of acute appendicitis and a case of partial intestinal obstruction secondary to a colonic mass. I was first assist during the appendectomy of the said patient and Dr. Yu, the attending surgeon did it in 30 mins. I slept at around 12 midnight and woke up as early as 6:30 a.m. Day Three - started with a cold bath, a warm breakfast made of corned beef and fried eggs courtesy of our friends in the dietary section and rounds at the surgical ward. Because Dr. Garcia, the consultant in charge of the clerks was in Cebu City for a convention, we interns took charge of the morning endorsement. After endorsement, I went to the university, tried to finish my clearance and went back at the hospital for lunch. I told the clerks to prepare for their reporting during the afternoon. A quiz was to follow after the reporting. We went through ...

Day One - I entered the hospital with that feeling of apprehension, weighing much more than the sentiment of thrill and excitement. I cannot understand it but I have this awkward feeling just surrounding me. I really cannot explain it. I am kind of happy to be with friends and in a new hospital and earning at last. However, I cannot help feel weird about the whole thing. The day passed by uneventfully. It was Orientation day and all the usual stuff and preliminaries were done. At around 12 noon I went home. It was a half-day work because today is Labor Day, a holiday. I decided not to eat lunch and I really don't know why. I went to my parents' store, asked for dough to buy me some new polo shirts and pants for work. I went to the mall, bought me 3 polo shirts, a long-sleeved t-shirt and 2 pairs of pants. I then went to buy a new penlight. I really was planning to buy me a new stethoscope, the quite expensive one (Littman) coz mine was kinda old. But my cash wasn't enough s...