You stand with the demonized so the demonizing will stop.
You stand with the DISPOSABLE so that you stop throwing people away.
Defend the rights of the Filipino child
That's one problem with the INSTANT and DISPOSABLE culture. You lose the art of reusing or repairing or rebuilding. Once something is damaged or used, nobody bothers to fix. Everybody just throws away so much waste. So when you see damaged individuals, abused individuals, youth thrown away, do you think demonizing them is the answer?
We should try fixing and bringing them back to themselves despite whatever past they've been through.
Stop attacking children
Lowering the minimum age of criminal liability is not the answer. Improving our rehabilitation and diversion programs should be given a chance.
Children should be in jails, not in prisons.
Our culture of death sees unborn children being killed for a choice. Elderly people are being euthanized for mercy. If we throw away our youth who have gone astray due to neglect, poverty, bad influence and exploitative gangs, who will teach our children how to care, how to share and how to love? Who will take care of us when we grow old?
Ang bata palanggaon, dili prisohon.
We need to learn from our grandparents, who fixed things lile old cars, damaged houses, and wounded relationships, because they were too precious and too valuable to throw away.
I learned something new tonight, reading Williams Obstetrics 25th edition, while mentoring resident Dr Kristina Plaza:
OBSTETRIC CARE CONSENSUS COMMITTEE
1. Prolonged latent phase is not an indication for CS
2. Protraction disorder is not an indication for CS
3. Active phase of labor begins at 6cm cervical dilatation
4. CS for active phase arrest should be reserved for women at or beyond 6cm of dilatation with ruptured membranes who fail to progress despite 4 hours of adequate uterine activity, or at least 6 hours of oxytocin administration with inadequate contractions and no cervical change
Doctors continually study.
There is no shame in admitting that you do not know everything, that even at the level of consultants we should continually study because the field of medicine is ever-changing.
Admitting to medical mistakes
There is no shame either, in admitting humbly when a mistake is committed. This is the first step to finding a solution to rectifying the mistake and learning from it. So long as patient safety is considered and the medical mistake can be rectified, mistakes can become our teachers.
Smooth Relationships more important than pride
We remember that it is easier to admit a mistake, rectify it and say sorry than to insist you did not a mistake then end up with a broken relationsbip because of pride.
"Bullying of trainees puts patient safety at risk."
Meeting with training officers, we discuss that it is important to protect the mental health of our trainees. It is our duty to create an enabling environment for learning, and for providing quality public service to our patients. Anger and hot tempers serve no purpose in training. Public humiliation reduces a trainee's credibility. Loss of confidence disables the trainee to care for the patients. The trainer should uplift the trainee and build confidence and inspire the trainee to study as hard as possible. The trainee does not only study for exams. The trainee should study for that moment when what the trainee has studied spells the difference between the life and death of a patient.
Mental health is a pressing issue in society these days, the threshold of tolerance differing between generations. Unfortunately, someone who expresses their feelings of depression may be considered attention-seeking by some, and fail to get the medical attention they need. Many Filipinos use spirituality as a coping mechanism for all the hardships they experience, allowing them to maintain a positive outlook in life despite the utter poverty. It is common to hear “sa awa ng diyos” (by God’s mercy) when talking about their health.
Spirituality is a sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves. Spirituality is associated with self-rated health and life satisfaction. Greater spirituality is associated with better mental health.
This weekend, the whole Cebu province will be part of the holy procession for #Sinulog. There will be a procession from the Sto Nino Basilica, walking thru the streets of MJCuenca, to Mango Avenue, circling the Fuente Osmena, down thru Osmena boulevard, until they reach back at the Sto Nino Basilica.
In today’s era of internet connectivity, social media becomes a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it changes the way we interact with each other, allowing us to communicate with people on the other side of the globe at the touch of a button, keeping people connected despite distance, time difference, language, culture, situation. It allows essential data at the our fingertips. On the other hand, the connectivity may in reality cause more isolation and depression, with discrepancies between what people think is real, what you wish was real, and what you know is real.
Connecting spirituality with technology, I recall how Pope John Paul II visited the Philippines in 1995 for the World Youth Day. People were raising white handkerchiefs to wave hello to Pope John Paul II. This was the age of evangelization, drawing in people from different walks of life, of acceptance, of tolerance and of respect.
Filipinos waved white handkerchiefs to welcome Pope John Paul II, chanting “JPII, we love you!” The youth waited overnight in Luneta Park to wait for the arrival of Pope John Paul II.
Fast-forward 20 years, when Pope Francis visited the victims of Haiyan “Yolanda” supertyphoon in 2015, especially in Tacloban, Leyte, people were flashing something else in the crowds. Pope Francis was welcomed by cellphone cameras trying to take the best picture or video. This was the age of social media invasion.
Thousands of cellphone cameras were pointed toward Pope Francis in warm welcome.
Similar changes are evident whereas before people said their prayers of grace before a meal, now they take photos of their food before they start to eat. Sinulog is a religious fiesta celebration of the Christ Child, the Santo Nino. People fill the streets of Cebu to sing and dance "Viva Santo Nino!" and "Pit Senyor!" and music blasts in speakers "I love Cebu" and "Pit Senyor, tayo na magsinulog, kitang tanan magPit Senyor, siyagit ug kusog, tanan magsaulog!" This is one fiesta celebration where all cellular signals will be blocked for security purposes, and we realize how very dependent we have become to technology. We feel paralyzed, we feel lost, we become anxious. That is what faith is all about. We celebrate our faith with or without technology. We come together to celebrate the child in each of us.How else has technology affected our lives today?What is the role of spirituality in mental health?
How has technology affected spirituality?
How does technology impact our way of life?
#HealthXPH #PitSenyor #Sinulog2019
Wednesday, January 16, 2019
"HOW DID AGING HIT YOU?"
This was the latest question on facebook trending nowadays. The instruction being to post the first ever photo on facebook and the latest. This would be my #10yearsapart: 2009 in UP-PGH and 2019 in VSMMC.
Basically, I am a doctor and public service has been my life. It was Senator Jovito Salonga who once addressed his critics by saying "dibale na kung matanda, basta't may pinagkatandaan..." so age we will, and hopefully we age with grace.
This is another invitation to reflect on how we've lived our lives. "How did aging hit you?" seems to emphasize that life will keep throwing challenges our way and we just have to make sure that we hit back just as hard.
More than the physical sense (camera quality matters) this is a good reminder of how we should age by grace.
I messaged doc Remo that I realized it was already past midnight and we were all still awake, talking about program outcomes for Filipino doctors... He said "teachers and students do that, doctors and perpetually awake..."
Makes sense that I am perpetually Sleepless in Cebu... I spend nights doing paperworks, constructing test questions, writing letters and finishing reports, all in the hope of helping our residents and students improve their grades.
I recently celebrated my 41st birthday and realized that I am not getting any younger. I am now hypertensive and have gained 20 lbs or so since working here. I have been working in my hospital for five years now and begin to wonder if the efforts we've taken even made any dent.
Are all the frustrations over politics and popularity worth the reasons why I stay?
The graduation speech of Pete Davis about Netflix infinite browsing mode among millenials comes to mind:
Considering that I teach millenials and batang 90s, we need to be reminded about COMMITMENT. We need to pick a movie and see it through to the end. We need to commit to our profession, our community and to our patients. We need to commit to making an effort to change the world, to make it a better place for our children to live in.
We spent weeks and months searching our brains for the right hashtag for our HIV advocacy in Cebu. We were treatment hub staff, social hygiene clinics, government employees, medical student leaders, faculty HIV coordinators, chiefs of hospitals, community-based organizations, and patient support groups. WHat we had in common was that we were all patient advocates.
We advocate increase HIV knowledge and awareness of HIV as a public health issue relevant enough for discussion.
We advocate normalization of HIV counseling and testing as the gateway to treatment, care, support and prevention of HIV.
We advocate reduction of stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV.
There are a lot of efforts organized to achieve all these things. There have been a lot of organizations popping up aiming to talk about HIV. What we need is to unify all these efforts so that we have one concentrated energy towards one health-related goal of ending HIV in Cebu and in the Philippines.
What have we achieved?
We have conducted a caravan of HIV Forums for Medical Students in the six medical schools in Cebu.
Cebu Doctors' University College of Medicine
September 4, 2018
#TOUCHMOVE Think Before You Play was an HIV Forum for Medical Students conducted at the CDU auditorium with the whole population of medical students attending from Level I to Level IV. September 4, 2018 being a holiday, students were free to participate in the lectures during the morning with an unconference to conclude the morning session, get free HIV counseling and testing from the AIDvocates and Mandaue City Social Hygiene Clinic, then participate in parallel sessions and focused group discussions in the afternoon. There was also signing of a wall of commitment, infomercial contest and poster-making contest with the theme of targeting enhanced awareness and control of HIV in Cebu.
Southwestern University-PHINMA College of Medicine
September 28, 2018
University of the Visayas Gullas College of Medicine
