UP Medics August-November 2018 Issue

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A UP MEDICS EXCLUSIVE The CochleHear Series: InSPIRE The Dean’s Vision for UPCM Nitelite by Mark Teo Class 2023 by Louie Dy Lorena Osorio Diego Mina Lordom Grecia Er Pilotin Markyn Kho Rory Nakpil and Hanna Ho The dean’s flagship project, InSPIRE, refers to a series of goals—In for infrastructure; S for science and discovery; P for partnership for progress in healthcare; I for innovation in leadership; R for resource generation, fiscal management and governance; and E for empowering—for embracing wellness, diversity, and sense of community. 1. Infrastructure UP College of Medicine Medical Science Students’ Unit is a new name to revitalize the building construction which stalled last 2016. Besides the re-christening, the University of the Philippines Medical Alumni Society (UPMAS) is also bent on hiring a new contractor and a construction manager for the new site, so construction can begin immediately and independent of the Academic Center. UP System President Danilo Concepcion has pledged to give about 70 million pesos for the expansion of three more floors to the original design. From the footprint of initially around 6000 square meters, this has now increased to more than 9000 square meters - at least 1/3 or 30% bigger footprint and space. There will also be three (3) more floors added to the proposed eight (8), and one of the floors will contain an auditorium that can house around 220 people. A replacement for the Florentino Herrera Medical Library will also be built, which will occupy one entire floor in the new University Library. A bridgeway connecting the UPCM Medical Science building with the floor that houses the medical library will be created. The dean hopes that the construction will be started again before the end of the year, and would be finished within the next two years. It would be then that the College in this cost complicated as the evening looms and the owls stir electrified flashing eyes in the gloom bringing back to me my darling who i lost the other day holds me tight till i’m together so i never fade away easy to my senses all the lack of it nothingness in a room clutching you caressing claws of shadows will it ever let you go and if i find the heart to turn and switch the sights live in lights will it show all the fears and failures that i feel tonight were never there at all Dean Charlotte Chiong heading the strategic planning workshop, which led to her plan, summarized as “INSPIRE”. could increase the number of entrants. “We still have to decide whether we will increase the lateral entrants or the direct entrants,” says Dr. Chiong. “Everything has to be evidence-based, either on our survey of what the students want or on the performance of the college.” 2. Science and Discovery According to Dr. Chiong, among more than 36,000 indexed scientific publications from 1930 to 2018 in the Philippines, more than a third of those came from the UP System. Among those, the triumvirate of UPCM, UP Manila, and PGH comprise more than a third of the total number of UP publications -- equal to UP Diliman’s output. “Can you imagine? A small student and faculty population like ours, but in terms of research output, we’re the same as the biggest campus in the system? I think that’s something to be proud of,” Dr. Chiong heartwarmingly remarked. However, she noted that only 4% of the faculty complement of UPCM (about 26 faculty members) have PhDs. Because MDs are considered masteral, she initially planned to implement a program wherein MDs with residency, fellowship, and publications are given PhD equivalents. This idea has been suggested to the UP Manila Chancellor since 2013. “You can double the number of PhDs by just giving [those who have published numerous research works] to obtain their PhD by some means, “ says Dr. Chiong. “A PhD-by-publication means writing a thesis that will basically summarize the body of work that they’ve already done. Aside from the existing MD-PhD program, we’re looking at faculty also to have more PhDs.” The dean is also aiming to further sharpen research-making among the students. Aside from just going through the motions of doing research, the aim is to equip and enable students to do publishable research -- not to ask students to submit papers in thesis form, but actually to submit them in publishable format. She is thinking of implementing a mentoring scheme similar to the existing one but geared towards research. Students going through their clinical years under the same clinical department can be converged into a group mentored by that department, and the goal would be to publish a case report or any paper before they graduate from LU7. “That’s my dream for the medical students -- to be knowledgeable about research,” she says. “I think it’s very vital, coming from the premier medical school of the country, that we have this ability to really publish and discover and establish your research careers early on; because I believe that research can help you be a better clinician. It’s very difficult to be a good clinician without being able to generate knowledge based on research.” The possibility of having dual Masters’ degrees, such as MD plus Master’s Degree in Clinical Epidemiology, MD plus Master’s Degree in Public Health, MD plus Master’s Degree in Pharmacology and Biochemistry, is currently being explored. 3. Progress and Healthcare Dr. Chiong acknowledges that while UPCM has a partnership with the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) for some research projects, and with the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD) for the MD-PhD program, there is still a need for more partnerships. The UP College of Medicine is ranked 70th among medical schools in Asia. The low score in internationalization may be due to the difficulty in getting international students given that the College is heavily subsidized by the Filipino taxes. This issue can be broadly attacked by having more international faculty appointed. Along with the UP Medical Alumni Society of America (UPMASA), the dean plans that should UPCM alumni abroad spend time in the Philippines to help develop modules with the consultants, review the courses, or be involved in research or community work, they could be appointed as adjunct faculty or visiting professors. Her current plan is to have clinical departments and basic departments get 10% of their faculty component from the visiting/touring faculty. In addition, Dr. Angela Aguilar from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology is heading the new Office for External Linkages and International Linkages. This office would review exchange programs and seek out top universities to partner with the College. This will give students more opportunities to spend time on sandwich programs on Master’s Degree courses, PhD, or even electives. 4. Innovation and Leadership While Dr. Chiong acknowledges that UPCM has always been known to be the top medical school, leading in innovative programs and having a curricular development way ahead of the others, she is looking to add more new programs. “We’re going to work on having a bioengineering program to allow medical students who are interested in inventing devices,” she says. “For example, [they can] work with the engineers from the UP College of Engineering, to come up with medical devices or just exploring new materials that can be used in the clinics in order to help us care for our patients.” 5. Resource Generation and Stewardship The dean and her team plan to institute some novel ways of being able to have more and better facilities for students. Space audits were conducted before the school year started to ensure the existing rooms used for lectures were in good condition. Chairs were refurbished, lighting and audiovisuals were improved, air conditioners were primed, tiles were fixed. They are currently studying the possibility of providing students with water for drinking. During her run for deanship, Dr. Chiong did a limited survey of about 95 students. She found out that the administration had the lowest score -- a failing grade of less than 3 in a scale of 1 to 6 -- under infrastructure and student services, although they did I want the UPCM medical student to graduate as a physician-scientist, with a nationalist fervor fairly under academic reputation. “Every time you want to institute change—especially for infrastructure— there’s always some kind of inconvenience. For sure things will get better once we get the new building,” she said. Dr. Chiong added that she was in a simulation workshop of SimMan, a high fidelity patient simulator. Before students are allowed to deal with patients directly, the faculty should first see whether students have enough skills to deal with a myriad of problems in airway, breathing, and so forth, through the use of a patient simulator. Once the new building is built, they plan to have at least one floor or even two floors for simulation. 6. Empower and Embrace The Associate Dean for Faculty and Students, Dr. Chette Gonzales, and Dr. Continued on page 11
The CochleHear Series: InSPIRE ... Continued from page 10 Benjamin Sablan, Jr. of the newly created Office for Resiliency, Diversity, Gender Sensitivity, and Community are planning on how to improve resiliency among medical students. The mentoring system will be more structured such that there would be a standardized way for students to be mentored. For the first time, they will be tapping not just faculty but also alumni to take in mentees. On the proposal of the UP Medical Student Council of having dogs for the students to pet before exams and allow the release of tension, Dr. Chiong says, “I’ve never been able to do that when I was a medical student like you, but I suppose things have changed dramatically and we need to be able to respond to your generational quirks and uniqueness.” On the Medical Cash Grant and the Cost of Medical Education Regarding the cost of medical education, the dean says that they are working on computing the reneging fee for the Return Service Agreement, taking into account the cost of personal services, capital outlay, and the depreciation of the physical plant and equipment. The Dean’s management team’s discussion with CHED clarified that because UPCM already has its own return service program, there will be no additional return service for those availing of cash grants from CHED. This is in contrast with other state universities and colleges (SUCs), which will require one year of return service per one academic year’s cash grant, in addition to serving as Doctors to the Barrios (DTTB). However, cash grant funding will most likely only be for this school year. “There’s a 90% chance that it might not be continued next year,” says Dr. Chiong. Spearheading the Path Towards More Research-Oriented Medical Education Dr. Chiong mentioned that whenever students are asked what a Five-Star Physician means to them, they would say “to give compassionate care” or “to become a compassionate health provider, decision maker, communicator, community leader and manager”. Nevertheless, she will be putting focus on one particular star: the research thrust. “I want the UPCM medical student to graduate as a physician-scientist, with a nationalist fervor,” she says. “Research can be translated into better clinical care, or better health policy, or changes in how we deliver care to individual patients. That’s my dream for the UPCM student— to strengthen its system by which we are able to graduate as physician-scientists. The physician-scientist is not only for the MD-PhDs, but for every UPCM graduate.” From the exit interview of the first batch of MD-PhD graduates, three out of the four graduates had indicated their preference to undertake residency training instead of research. While this may sound rather contrary to the goal of the MD-PhD program, the dean does not believe so. For her, the MD-PhDs should be immersed in the clinics as well, so they will be able to formulate the research questions that can answer the needs of the patients in the clinics -- similar to what she has done for the Newborn Hearing Screening program in the country. “It’s going to be not only bench-tobedside, but bedside-to-bench, and also from bench-to-community,” she says. Dr. Chiong then ended by sharing another story: “We went to Boracay [in 2004], not because we want to go to the beach -- although that’s part of it (laughs). We went there to do mission work for the Ati population. The conditions for the indigenous peoples were really poor. We found out that 50% of them had luga - ear discharge, so we said, “Bakit ganon?” The national average for otitis media is 12%. How come we’re given 50% here? “One of our graduates at our ENT Training Program, Dr. Regie Lyn Santos- Cortez, has a PhD in Genetic Epidemiology. Her first paper was on a child who had recurring ear infections in the pediatrics ward. They couldn’t find out what’s wrong with the child. I told her, “Baka may cochlear malformation. Let’s do a CT scan.” Lo and behold, when we thought it was a normal CT scan, the patient actually had a cochlear malformation. That paper won a first prize. “[Dr. Santos-Cortez] did a pedigree for the Ati population in Boracay. She found [the trait] to be circular instead of going down -- that means there are a lot of intermarriages. When we got samples from the saliva and from the discharge, what we found out was that they had a gene, a rare mutation in A2ML1 (a protein important for defense against microbes), which made them predisposed to developing otitis media.That paper got published in Nature Genetics in 2015.” Dr. Chiong strongly believes that survey or research always go hand in hand with service. For example, buying expensive audiometers at 250,000 or 300,000 pesos are unnecessary when even schoolteachers can be taught how to use a more affordable, 250-peso tuning fork to do hearing screening and detect hearing loss among children. “You can translate what you learned in the clinics, so that you are also able to do it in the communities and vice-versa,” she says. “Community can also impact the way you take care of your patients, and taking care of patients can also impact the community.” “My dream for medical students to graduate in UPCM is actually quite big,” she continues. “If there’s anything I learned from being in med school, it’s that if you do really well, if you imbibe the values that we want you to really learn— honesty, integrity, hard work, discipline —these values will allow you to grab an opportunity when it presents itself. And once you get that opportunity, that it will lead to more doors opening for you. We want you to realize your dreams and pursue your passion. We want you to be able to incorporate happiness into your lives. Because when we are not happy doing anything, it’s not worth it. You take care of patients and you enjoy that as well. Because if you do that—and that’s what happened to me—everything will be exciting.” aching by Iya de Claro Class 2023 FULL TRANSCRIPT Doctors for the People by Jose Y. Dalisay Jr., PhD Delivered during the UP College of Medicine Commencement Exercises at the UP Theater, July 22, 2018, 12:00 pm CHANCELLOR CARMENCITA PADILLA, Dean Charlotte Chiong, Members of the Graduating Class of 2018 and their proud parents, fellow members of the faculty and staff, friends, ladies and gentlemen: Thank you all for this great honor of being invited as your commencement speaker. I’m still not sure exactly why a Professor of English is speaking to a corps of medical graduates and professionals, and I know that many of you will be wondering as well what I have to say. But I will do my best to make it worth your time—and mine—for at least one good reason. This will probably be the last time I will be wearing this sablay as a UP official, as I will be retiring six months hence after 35 years of service to the University. So this, too, is my commencement as much as yours—the start of another phase of life. This, too, is my valedictory, my final opportunity to share with you some insights gleaned from my life in UP as student, teacher, and administrator. And, may I add, as a writer of fiction, which beneath all these robes and titles is what I really am—a storyteller. Thirty-six years ago, as a young and aspiring writer, I wrote a story about a doctor. The story was set in the Philippine Revolutionary War, and it dealt with an old, cynical doctor named Ferrariz who had made a mess of his life and, seeing few other options, had signed up to become a doctor with the Spanish army, fighting the Filipino insurgents up in the mountains. His unit is taking heavy losses, but one day they capture a rebel—a fifteen-year-old boy named Makaraig, who is badly wounded. Ferrariz’s superior, a major, orders Ferrariz to save the boy’s life. Let me quote briefly from the story: … For three days he worked like a driven man, cleaning out and dressing the boy’s wounds, setting the arm, packing cold compresses upon the swellings. He felt godlike in that mission. He unpacked his books from their mildewed boxes, brushed off the fungi and sometimes, i still miss you. when i look at the stars shining brightly in the darkest of night skies, i remember those nights we wasted talking to each other about anything we found relevant. when i find the time to stare at the vast, aquamarine sea, i remember the wave of emotions you took me on. i was capsized by my love for you. when i first notice the gleam of the sun in the morning, i remember the warmth i found in your eyes. you never failed to illuminate my day with just one look, one smile. you were my picket fence. you were my everything. i am grateful for so much. reviewed and relived the passion of the way of healing. He watched miracles work themselves upon the boy and stood back amazed at his own handiwork. When he was through, when he faced nothing more than that penance of waiting for the boy to revive, Ferrariz realized that his eyes were wet. Not since he stepped into the University, knowing nothing, had he felt as much of an honest man. In other words, this doctor, who had lost faith in his talents and in his hands, suddenly finds himself revived and redeemed by his mission of curing a battered boy. By saving Makaraig, he saves himself. But the story doesn’t end there. The major has his own reasons for bringing a rebel back to life—to torture and interrogate him, and eventually to kill him, and that’s where the story closes, in a long scream that pierces the doctor’s newly awakened soul. That story, titled “Heartland,” went on to win in the 1982 Palanca Awards for Literature—my very first First Prize. But why did I write a story about a doctor who saves a patient, only to have him murdered by others? Why did I write a story about self-redemption? The story behind the story was that while I was only 28—and I’ll have something to say about being in one’s 20s later—I felt like Ferrariz, an old man who had gone adrift and who was just going from job to job with mechanical indifference. It was martial law, and despite the fact that I became a political prisoner at 18 and spent seven months in a camp in what we now call Bonifacio Global City, I had been working as a government propagandist for the past eight years, churning out press releases, speeches for President Marcos, and glowing articles about his New Society. I needed to remind myself that I could write good fiction (what I was writing for work was bad fiction), that somewhere in me was truth waiting to be said. But beyond my personal story, I have Continued on page 12 for the countless nights you spent calming me down. frightened as i was of the world, i found safety in your virtual embrace. for the journeys you took me on. we sailed far and wide, went on adventures so great. i still remember them to the very last detail. for being brave enough to talk to me that one fine morning. unexpected as it was, we became the greatest of friends. i never thought i would find someone like you. you were an oasis in the driest of deserts and sometimes, i still miss you.
Page 1 and 2: OFS News UP MedChoir Bags 4 Golds i
Page 3 and 4: College of Medicine Family Gathers
Page 5 and 6: UP MedChoir Bags 4 Golds in BICF 7
Page 7 and 8: HiMEDSikan 2018 Officially Conclude
Page 9: A FILM REFLECTION Crazy Rich Asians

UP Medics August-November 2018 Issue

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