At Last Christmas Vacation...

This has been a very trying year for me.

Many things did not go according to plan. Many plans did not even push through. And I am looking forward to the conclusion of year 2006. Good bye old year and welcome a brand new year full of promise and hope.

Now, I am not one who really believes in the New Year, New beginning philosophy in life but this time I just might make an exception. Heck, I am even starting to believe the Chinese horoscope that my friends have been mouthing for the last year, that "this year was not a good luck year for dragons".

Although there have been a some improvements and achievements this last 12 months, it always pale with the death of my Dad last May. I thought I had recovered but there really is some truth to the saying that it's always a little worse in December.

I often believe that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Then I hope that the coming year has made me tougher than this one.

And the storm rages on...

It's a good thing that Typhoon Reming missed Metro Manila. Coz then we wouldn't be able to enjoy the holiday. :-)

But be that as it may, I sure hope that the rest of the country fares as well. One of my friends was in a superferry when the typhoon hit. She described the experience as quite exhilirating. hehehe. Just shows how tough that little lady is.

Tuition Fee Increase

Recently, I received a txt from my classmate on what my stand on the proposed tuition fee increase is. As an immediate responce, I told her that I was against it. But thinking about it more, I wanna reverse my original position.

The reason for the initial stand was purely selfish. I still have a little sister who was going to college and I didn't want to have to shell out megabucks for her tuition. However, I began thinking why UP was such a great school to go to and I realized that if we didn't have the increase, we might compromise the quality of education that our younger generations will be receiving. As it is, we have lost a lot of our better professors to other, better paying universities. We have to face the fact that waiving the flag of nationalism in their face just doesn't cut it anymore. They have families to support and as is proper, they want their families to have a better life as well.

We also have to keep up with the advances in teaching science. We can't allow ourselves to lag behind the rest of the world in education. (although we already are) The edge that our citizens have in getting jobs here and abroad is our quality education and we have steadily lagged behind in this field such that the advantage we had over our ASEAN neighbors in the middle 20th century have all but vanished.

So as much as it hurts me and my wallet to say it, I have to agree to the increase in tuition.

On waiting for grades

One would think that the advent of technology would ease the burden of waiting for grades. However, it seems that the advent of the internet and crs has made the waiting more unbearable. It would appear that the ability to check on the availability of your grades has increased the stress level of students.

It used to be that you get your grades in small slips of paper several weeks after the end of class but now for the price of an internet connection, you could log on everyday and drive yourself absolutely crazy.

Ohhh!!! the price of modern technology. think of it...stress on demand...

It's a wonderful world.

The Nursing Paradox.

During this day, I have been asked this question more than just several times.

"Why are Doctors going over to the nursing profession?"

I begin my answer to this question with a disclaimer. These are just my thoughts on the matter. It is not my intention to act as a spokesperson for the medical profession.

That said, let us begin with a story.

Lucy is a wonderful woman of about 40 years. She is a loving wife and a caring mother who lives in a middle class neighborhood and a middle class life. She possesses a college education from a respectable university and is well read and well opinioned on current events surrounding the country.

For the last couple of months, Lucy has been disturbed by the op-eds and news articles coming out about the exodus of our medical professionals. She can't understand what would possess doctors earning a respectable income to go over to the US and Europe as nurses. She can't understand why intelligent and qualified people such as her pediatrician and her anesthesiologist husband would want to "degrade" themselves and become nurses.

Well Lucy, here's my answer to your question.

This exodus of our medical professionals is not a new thing in our country. It happened in the 60s and 70s and has continued to happen without abate up to the present time. It is only now that there is a marked increase in the exodus that it has attracted widespread media attention.

"What?" she says.

Yes. A few decades ago, whole batches of medical graduates from top tier medical schools would leave for the US to practice there. After a while, demand subsided and the flood became a trickle. Unfortunately, that trickle was usually the very cream of the crop. They left us below the radar by taking the ECFMG exam which later on became the USMLE. Passing these exams allowed them to take their residency training in the US. After being certified in their specialties, a substantial number was absorbed by their hospitals.

"However, recent events have a significant difference from the trickle that has been leaving the country for decades. Now, it is once again a flood and this time they are leaving as members of a different profession." she says.

True, there is indeed a difference. Now, its not just the medical profession that is being sucked dry by the demand abroad. It is also our teachers, engineers, police officers and other professionals. Yet these other professions have not been demonized as unpatriotic.

"Granting that. But doctors have to be held to a higher standard."

Doctors are no more human than the next man. They are subject to the same temptations, dreams, aspirations...as the next man. They are also allowed to better their lives as the next man. So to tell them that they are barred from deciding to switch to a higher paying profession would be tantamount to involuntary servitude which is expressly prohibited by the Bill of Rights.

Furthermore, just what is it about the practice of medicine that the public at large seems to have some kind of magical draw to it?

What's so magical about being demonized for asking a professional fee that is concomitant with your training and experience? What's so magical about being sued by your patients when they find out that they can't afford the bill for your services?

People have no idea what it cost to become a doctor. The tuition fee for the first 3 years of medical school is P50,000 plus books and xerox of about P20,000 per semester! That is P420,000 in three years! Then on the 4th year the tuition jumps to P160,000 for the year plus expenses of about the same amount for the year. So just to graduate from Med school you need at least P740,000.

But wait! So now you have graduated. You still need to do another year of internship before you can be eligible for the board exams! Add the physical and psychological stress that comes with the profession and med school and one begins to wonder why there are any doctors at all.

So assuming that a doctor gets everything right and passes the boards in one take. What does he have to look for after garnering his brand new MD and license?

He can look forward to a nice fat P10,000/month salary as resident in a private hospital and P16,000/month in a gov't hospital.

Let us compare this to the alternative. If he goes on to become a nurse and finishes in 2 years. He can get a job that gives him $40/hr on 8-12 hr shifts for five days a week. a minimum of P64,000/month.

Furthermore, how can one fault young doctors from going on to nursing when their mentors are spearheading the thrust. Many of the hospital's senior consultants were the first to jump on the bandwagon. These are people that young physicians look up to.

So be kind the next time you think of those unpatriotic, selfish, self centered doctors who don't care about their country and countrymen.

Parting Gift

As I finish the last enumeration in my property exam last night, I think back on the last words my professor said to us in class. This exam was supposed to have been a parting gift as this was the last time that we would ever get him as a teacher. Hope was tenor of the day prior to the exam and reality sinks in as the shit hits the fan.

Maybe he meant it as a parting gift because it would mean bye bye for us from the college said a fellow in the same boat. Maybe it is.

Maybe that is what he means with his macabre sense of humor.

All I can say is, good thing that there's still the power of prayer.

Loneliness of the law

A recent conversation with a friend brought this thought to my head. She was saying that her life since becoming a lawyer has become a series of late nights alone. Of having a regular table at a little restaurant with always a single place setting. Of having to burn the midnight oil even after finishing law school and perhaps more so.

Subsequently, she asked me why I chose to pursue 2 professions with the highest rates of divorce and suicide...having the worst setup for a successful family life...having one of the highest rates of depression.

I could only think of the words of Justice Malcolm:

"I am wounded, perhaps burnt by embolismic expectations from my family, friends and other relationships. Perhaps I am tired of trying to be the best. But when I come to think that I want to be a lawyer...It eliminates my frustrations..."

And think that perhaps I would become lonely in this quest, but at least I'm in good company.

Blogging away...

What is it about blogging that makes a normally private person willing to reveal a lot of inner thoughts and turmoil to the world in general. I have read numerous blogs revealing all sorts of things that people would never say aloud in proper conversation and yet they would readily post in a site for all the world to see.

Is it perhaps the feeling of anymosity of the ether space which empowers us to say aloud all our most secret thoughts? or is it the possibility of having someone alike read about our thoughts and know that he or she is not alone...

Is the internet really just a cure for each of our peculiar loneliness...

Girl-on-girl

A question was asked in a consti class recently.

"What is an allowed type of same sex activity?"

It was answered by one in the class in the following manner.

"as long as its girl on girl and the girls are beautiful, it's allowable"

Predictably, the professor went ballistic. But the professor being that professor went only a short distance before sputtering back with a host of comments directed at the speaker about his choice of porn.

All of this was done in the spirit of good fun and, allegedly, a legal education. Hehehe

Literature

I was talking with a friend a couple of days ago and she was raving about some of the new books that she has read. She was saying that it has been keeping her up nights and her performance at work was already suffering but she just couldn't help herself. She has even gone so far to cancel a few dates with her beloved boyfriend just to be able to finish the latest of a series.

It continually amazes me how the power of the written word has the ability to drive us to distraction and let our imaginations soar. To take a perfectly sane and functional individual and get her to neglect her means of livelihood so that a book, a story may finally be concluded.

It is, thus, quite ironic when I overheard a conversation over lunch the other day by couple of young people saying that books have no place in the new millenium. That since everything is in the internet anyways, then we should just forget about publishing and post everything in the net. Now, I am not one to trash the net as it is one of my favorite sources of information and one of the means by which I get things off my chest but in the contention of these youngsters, I beg to differ.

There is no greater feeling than to snuggle up to a good book in a rainy day while drinking a nice cup of cocoa and simply enjoying the joy of the written word. Somehow, I can't picture myself with the same kind of comfort while snuggling up to a laptop. There is no thrill like reading a mystery novel and turning page after page of heart racing whodunit. For some reason, I don't think I could ever get that king of spine chilling feeling with a mouse.

Maybe I'm wrong and maybe they're right. But hopefully they're reality doesn't become contemporary reality in my lifetime.

Just my two cents worth....

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.--

Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster

-Elizabeth Bishop

And so the circus begins

When I was a kid, there used to be a circus that would arrive every year and perform at the Araneta Coliseum. And this was a real circus with elephants and lions and clowns. I remember that this usually happened around the months of December and was looked forward to by my entire family.

These days, the circus usually arrives around the time of July 25 or 26 depending on whether you asked Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, the vice chairman of House committee on justice or Maguindanao Rep. Simeon Datumanong, the chairman. This circus, ostensibly called the impeachment complaints, seems to surface around the the start of the first semester and continues till the impeachment is found to be premature or later dismissed for lack of merit.

This year the start of the annual filingfest began with the discussion of when the 1 year protection of the president really ends with the pro administration congressmen salivating on the fact that the opposition filed the complaint prematurely.

A quote from Rep. Lagman seems to signify the administration's battle plan.

"It is clear that they were introduced while the President still enjoys her one-year protection from a new impeachment initiative. I hope to convince my chairman and the members of the committee and the House on this"

Meanwhile, the opposition plans to inundate the Congress with complaints as its answer to averred battle plan. This is evidenced with the 8 complaints of substantially the same content which has so far been filed.

However, even if they succeed in filing the complaint, there seems to be no doubt as to the ultimate answer of the president to the ever persistent tries of the opposition to unseat her.

Pimentel says it succintly:

"they will use their huge parliamentary majority in the House to kill it in one second. Hindi na rin kailangan pahabain yon"

And so the circus begins anew.....

The fury that is Glenda

As the storm lashes out at the walls of the hospital, there is a familiar ring to the complaints that is voiced by the patients who come in to the emergency room. Stories of flood and power outtages in their homes and villages, stories of stalled cars and fears of leptospirosis or other flood and rainy season associated disease.

Interestingly enough, this is the background as we were listening to the sugar coated, tonsillitis causing speech of the president. Promises of infrastructure and super regions collide with the reality of a strained response to Typhoon Glenda.

Of course, I have no right to complain as I'm just happy that property class was suspended.

Pregnancy and stupidity

I don't know what it is about pregnancy. It never seems to occur with the one that wants it but always occurs with the one's who want to avoid it the most.

Case in point:

This patient comes in telling me that she hasn't had her period in 3 months and that she thinks she has some kind of uterine cancer. She said that she read over the internet that it is one of the symptoms of this type of cancer. So after the physical exam and lab results come in, I say to her that she's pregnant. Hence the conversation:

"Doc di ako pwedeng mabuntis! It's just not possible."

"Bakit naman?"

"Kasi we used protection."

"Talaga? What kind of protection?"

"ah...eh...yung kwan po yung...withdrawal po."

"ay pwede ka pa ding mabuntis doon."

"di po talaga pwede kasi nilalabas naman namin after sex"

"Huh?"

"di ba ganun ang withdrawal? Ilalabas after sex?"

Haay naku naman talaga! Kung di naman makurta ang isip mo dito!