Fil-Am doctors are unsung heroes

Last Jan. 9, the Association of Filipino Physicians in America (Appa) and the Philippine Medical Association (PMA) conducted a joint congress at Manila Hotel. President Aquino delivered the keynote address, assisted by Acting Health Secretary Janette Garin.

The Appa delegates were led by president Carlos Patalinghug and his wife, executive secretary Lucy de Castro, auxiliary president Lilibeth Carlota, director Lupo Carlota, and congress organizer Alex Cueto. The PMA delegates were led by president

Minerva Calimag, secretary general Mariane Dobles, governors Rufino Bartolabac, Alberto Guevarra, Ma. Lourdes Monteverde and Karen Salomon, and myself as former president.

After the congress, the Appa members were invited by the governor of Masbate to conduct a medical mission there. They are now among the hundreds of Fil-American physicians who came home on their own volition to conduct prescheduled charity medical missions in various depressed areas in the country.

Many of these physicians are engaged in private practice in the United States. They closed their offices, suspended their income, purchased their travel tickets, booked their hotel accommodations, and brought instruments, machines and medical supplies to carry on their resolve of providing free medical care to residents of marginalized areas in need of medical treatment and surgery that they cannot afford.

Many of the physicians are retirees who canceled their vacation plans in US winter resorts to join the charity medical missions without fanfare. Common to these Fil-Americans is the burning desire to extend free medical services to their former compatriots—men, women, children and babies.

Many of the medical missionaries are senior Appa members who took part in the first Appa-PMA congress that I, as then PMA president, organized on Dec. 14, 1988, with the assistance of former PMA president Nena Eng Tan and the Philippine ambassador to the United States at that time, Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez. Then President Corazon Aquino, through the intercession of then Sen. Joker Arroyo, delivered a welcome address in Malacañang and expressed her appreciation to the Fil-American doctors for reserving a place in their hearts for their home country. Others have since returned like “homing pigeons” to serve Filipinos. Last year, many more joined the missions that served the survivors of Typhoons “Yolanda” and “Ruby.”

A perennial setback is the government policy of requiring foreign medical practitioners involved in medical missions, including Fil-Americans, to secure medical licenses. For the latter, the Philippine Regulation Commission even required payments of back dues.

During a recent joint meeting of the Appa and PMA members, I endorsed a resolution stating that in the spirit of the Filipino utang na loob, the government may waive and dispense red tape and grant free renewal of the medical licenses required of Fil-American physicians engaged in free medical missions. After all, these physicians come home to render free services and not to engage in private medical practice.

Appa members and many Fil-American physicians in other medical organizations in the United States who periodically return to sponsor and deliver free healthcare in medical missions are among the unsung heroes of our times. May their tribe increase.

—SANTIAGO A. DEL ROSARIO, MD,
former president,
Philippine Medical Association