Let us be PWDs*

Most people outside Negros Oriental thought that Silliman University had a Medical School all these years, being a prestigious institution of more than 100 years old. However, for all of us in this Province, especially from Silliman, this remained only a dream until 1997 when serious work on this dream began.

There was a lot of skepticism. Many did not believe putting up a medical school from scratch was possible, fearing that the project would not be financially viable and the quality of education questionable. But by sheer determination, hard work and a lot of prayers, the SU Medical School was born and the first enrollees had their first day of school in June 2005.

There were only 33 medical schools in the country then. On February this year, during the 50th Association of Philippine Medical Colleges convention, there were 48 medical schools.

Together with six other internists, and simultaneous with starting my clinical practice in April 1988, I spearheaded the first accredited residency program in Internal Medicine at SUMC and Holy Child Hospital.

Since then until early 2000, we have graduated 28 specialists in Internal Medicine, with 15 of them serving patients in Negros Oriental.

Many more have graduated after them. This has expanded our IM doctors from seven to more than 20, and we also have sub-specialists covering practically almost all areas of Internal Medicine as a result of this pioneering effort.

To maintain the momentum of providing medical services to our people in Negros Oriental, especially with the exodus of physicians going abroad in the 1990s to early 2000, I conceptualized the establishment of the SU Medical School with the pioneering faculty composed mainly of graduates from our Residency Program.

Subsequently, specialists from other departments joined the wonderful core group of faculty who sacrificially took time off from their busy clinical practice to make the four-year curriculum, and then to actually teach the medical students.

Just like any beginning medical school, our first graduates were few. But currently, there are more than 50 graduates per year so in a five-year period, there shall be 250 available physicians.

Hopefully, most of them will stay in Negros Oriental, while the others go back to their countries and provinces.

During the last day of the APMC Convention this year, one of the topics was The Things I Wish Medical School Taught Me. The discussants were all recent medical graduates trying to find their places in medical practice, and wishing that their alma mater taught them how to navigate difficult career scenarios.

Those in the Doctors to the Barrio Program felt they should have had higher doses of public health education, organizational skills, plus a little of everything else when they were away in remote areas that were visited by doctors only once every two years.

The recent death of Dr. Dreyfuss Perlas, one of the Doctors to the Barrios, was unfortunate, and a very great loss to the medicine profession and to the patients especially.

One in General Practice wished that his teachers were frank and honest enough to tell him not only the good things of being a doctor but the harsh realities of starting a practice.

An academician and researcher said he wished they had paid more attention to their subject “Principles of Teaching” where teaching skills, curriculum planning, and research were taught.

I cannot help but think back to the medical curriculum we prepared for your education. The 36 extra units you enrolled in has earned you a Certificate of Public Health, together with your Doctor of Medicine degree.

You already have whatever it is in the wish lists of the convention speakers. That, plus the clinical, ethical, and many more experiences you have had at SU Medical School, and in the clinics have prepared and equipped you for life’s surprises.

Of course, there is no perfect curriculum. Graduates must, therefore, continue to be diligent students and have a lifelong learners’ attitude. My own wish is that our graduates become part of the faculty of our Medical School, become lecturers in local, regional, and national conventions, as well as occupy influential positions in the government health system whether on a local, regional, national, or international levels.

Our earlier graduates are now in the different areas of practice covering the community and hospital services. Basically, the provincial community hospitals and district hospitals, including those in Nabilog, Amio, Dawis, Bayawan, NOPH and Siquijor are being attended by SU Medical School graduates.

We also have graduates who are full-fledged diplomates in their fields of specialties. Other graduates are in various levels of residency training in Neurology, Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, ENT, Pediatrics, Ophthalmology, Radiology, Pathology, OB-Gyn, IM, Surgery, Anesthesia, Dermatology.

This number of physicians, after finishing their trainings in community referral system and hospital practices, must have a place to practice. Therefore, one of the solutions to address this need is a providential opportunity for me, together with a few others, to set up a new hospital system with state-of-the-art facilities not currently available here, so that when all our graduates come back to serve, they have a place to practice, and more importantly, something they can call their own.

All of these started as awareness of what services were wanting and needed, followed by developing a program to prepare the specialists, to becoming members of the faculty for the establishment of a medical school in Silliman, and finally, providing a place here for the graduates to practice.

This is the spectrum of my advocacies which, in fact, have led me to miss out on many opportunities for personal gain. But in retrospect, I’m happy because whatever was completed have been able to help our patients and doctors alike.

So I now leave this into the younger hands who are still in the sunrise of your life since we only pass this life once.

I have done what I had to do, together with our dedicated faculty members, but just in case our efforts will no longer be appreciated in the future generations of Negros Oriental, I always remind myself of a poem entitled Anyway:

You see in the final analysis it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

All of these events falling into place in perfect sequence seems to have been organized by Somebody up there. What started as a dream is now slowly but surely becoming a reality.

There is a great need that all of us must sometimes be PWDs. Not a Person with Disability but a Person with Dreams, a Person with Determination, a Person with Discipline.

I do believe “the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

Dr. Jone Amante is a nephrologist, the former dean and the Founding Dreamer of the SU Medical School. It was his vision and determination that brought together a reluctant band of faculty members and skeptically financers to produce some of the finest doctors in the country today.

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