The Freudian Slip Of A Bacolodnon

I am currently waiting for the second Presidential debate, I am thinking of how the next Administration should address the health challenges of the country. The facts are clear, our country still has to really achieve high performance in Immunization coverage, improve services in maternal and child health and address access to safe drinking water and sanitation. So, if given the choice, based on my experience as a former Doctor to the Barrios and working with more than 72 local government units and their municipal health offices, I want the next President to focus on the following items, from the most immediate to long-term: 1. Genuine Universal Health Care - the keyword here is genuine. The Aquino administration pushed for Kalusugang Pangkahalatan and although there have been gains it is not really Universal as what the current administration would like to believe. Universal Healthcare implies basic and essential health services are made available for everyone . And I mean everyon...

As a professor in medical school teaching Family and Community Medicine, one of my topics is to teach Primary Health Care. I would usually discuss the Alma Ata Declaration Document with the class and discuss historical and current events related to Primary Health Care in the Philippine experience. But I have always felt that the best way to teach Primary Health Care is to let the students experience it for themselves so for the past two years, I have been challenging my third year med students to come up with a community project with a partner "community" of choice where they would come up with a project for the community, particularly one that addresses a health issue. The objective is for them to practice the principles on PHC that they have learned in school. They would write a monthly progress report about what they have done. As a final output they would come up with a video documentary that would describe their project and experience. For this year, I had these amazi...

Nowadays, we hear more often about pursuing one's passion at work and career. Especially in my kind of work where we are supposed to do the "impossible" that passion has become a key word and ingredient in driving the internal motivation to pursue the almost unachievable. Passion is such a big word and its true essence is sometimes hardly noticed. It comes from the Latin word passio which means "to suffer" or "to endure". So your passion is something you are willing to endure for or suffer. It is something that you are willing to do even if it hurts. Its oldest root word "pei" literally means "to hurt". And it is usually referred to the sufferings of Christ on the Cross. In other words, me ganung level ang "passion" yung handa kang magpakamatay . Pag hindi ka nasasaktan, hindi yan passion. Whether your passion is a person, a relationship or an advocacy or issue or set of values and beliefs, you are willing to offer you ...

The results of this year's USLS COM FCM-1 Cinemedicine2016 have been revealed today. I couldn't have been prouder of the outputs of the students. Since 2012, first year med students of USLS College of Medicine would produce minifilms as part of their requirements under my class in Family and Community Medicine, and the films usually highlight the illness experience of the family and the patient and the role of the health care professional along the illness trajectory. This year I would say the FCM-1 set the bar higher producing high quality films. Results: Best Actress - Erica Aragon of Recall Best Actor - Mark Senoron of Marked Best Screenplay - Marked Best Production - Marked Best Editing - Recall Best Film - Marked Marked also got the highest online poll votes. MOre than 10,000 votes were casted this year online and Marked got at least 33% of the votes. Like it? Share it. Get the Share on Facebook widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox ! Not se...

My work provides me with the opportunity to work with frontliners in the Philippine public health system. Being from the frontlines myself (former Doctor to the Barrios), a lot of lessons learned can be shared by those who are literally on the ground, insights which neither the academe can fully teach nor policy makers can fully understand. Lately I visited Looc, Romblon, the current Mayor and MUnicipal Health Officer were my former "students" under the Municipal Leadership and Governance Program of ZFF in collaboration with the University of Makati. They continued their partnership with ZFF under the "alumni program" which is officially known as the "Continuining Leadership in Health and Development Program". participants under the CLHDP discuss issues beyond health and would look at health challenges through different lenses of social determinants such as education and livelihood. Mayor Leila was generous enough with her time when I asked her if I could...

As per tradition, this year's First year med students of University of Saint La Salle College of Medicine have produced their own set of cinemedicine films highlighting various illnesses and telling the story of how family members and the patients undergo the illness experience. Here are the entries: (https://youtu.be/h_l14cP2_Nw) https://youtu.be/ZWrtoWQsfug (https://youtu.be/FTOw7Gdmljo) (https://youtu.be/VAJM08hidBU) Polls Closed: Best Film is Marked based on judges scores and online polls. Like it? Share it. Get the Share on Facebook widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox ! Not seeing a widget? ( More info )Like it.

UPDATE: China is the host for the FIBA World Cup 2019. In a few minutes, the Philippine delegation, led by sports patron, philanthropist and businessman Manny Pangilingan, will make its bid to host the FIBA World Cup this 2019. The country's main competitor in the bid is China. Here's why I think the Philippines should host (again) the World Cup of Basketball: 1. Filipinos are crazy for basketball No other race in the entire Universe is basketball-crazy more than the Filipinos. Since the Americans taught us how to play this sport, the Filipinos got hooked to the game. We never let go of it. 2. There is a basketball "court" in almost every street in the Philippines . Even in the most unexpected places you would see an improvised basketball ring with guys and even girls playing hoops.  3. Even in the worse of times, Filipinos never stop playing basketball . It is definitely a national past-time. Need I even dare to venture and say a "national...