Student Doctors at Work

by: Ma. Monique Theresita Soliven

It was a warm day, and my duty mates, Ting-Ting Paber and Neil Marcos, and I were the first group to embark in what we expected to be just a typical day at the center. We all thought that it would be just like our bedside rounds back in Zamboanga City Medical Center, wherein we would extract the history from the patient, perform the necessary physical examination, assess the patient based on your findings and discuss the management plan. Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Little did we know that we would be having a totally different experience on that fateful first day.

One of the nurses, Sir Toto, told us that they were conducting a medical mission at the elementary school grounds in Barangay Poblacion in Siay. He asked if we would like to help out in “Operation Tuli.” Dr. Ruhida Sarabi-Saydil gave us permission over the phone. Seeing that I haven’t performed circumcision, I was very worried that I wouldn’t be able to experience doing the operation myself. I was relieved when I learned that my duty mates are experienced and they would help me out. Sir Toto also assured us that he is trained to do circumcisions and offered to demonstrate to us the procedures and techniques.

One of the nurses, Sir Toto, told us that they were conducting a medical mission at the elementary school grounds in Barangay Poblacion in Siay. He asked if we would like to help out in “Operation Tuli.” Dr. Ruhida Sarabi-Saydil gave us permission over the phone. Seeing that I haven’t performed circumcision, I was very worried that I wouldn’t be able to experience doing the operation myself. I was relieved when I learned that my duty mates are experienced and they would help me out. Sir Toto also assured us that he is trained to do circumcisions and offered to demonstrate to us the procedures and techniques.

Helping out at Operation Tuli '12

Since the three of us were in this together, Neil, Ting and I never left each other’s sides while each one of us took turns in performing the operation. The other two would observe and provide assistance in handing out the instruments used throughout the operation. It was a funny sight: it really looked like we were in an operating room, performing a major operation. When my turn came, I did my best to keep my cool and to recall all the steps. Mine was particularly a more complex case due to the fact that he already had been circumcised by an albularyo or a traditional healer with the use of a bolo knife. This made the operation difficult for both the patient and for myself. For one, the patient cried in pain. As the patient cries, the beads of sweat on my forehead grew. I learned that keeping a cool head and being focused is the key. Despite the challenges of the whole operation, I managed to make it through with the help of my duty mates. They fueled my drive to succeed in my first ever surgical operation. Once we’re done, we breathed a sigh of relief and gave each other a pat on the back. At that moment, we realized that we had a role in the boy’s transition to manhood. There I was, faced with the importance of the medical profession and the responsibility that you have for the patient's life.

Conducting a thorough Physical Exam

For our second RHU duty, we finally got the chance to see patients with various conditions ranging from skin diseases to tuberculosis. It is quite a challenge to take on, since there might be misdiagnoses, which would lead to wrong drug prescriptions and so on. These are things that you might only see on the news, but this is becoming more real to us. You can avoid these things with the right elicitation of your history and physical examination. It is an important skill to master, which is why we are being exposed to health centers and hospitals at an early stage. More importantly, a doctor-patient relationship must be established for one to be able to elicit the important data that would lead to the right diagnosis and eventually provide the proper care that these patients deserve. All aspects of the patient’s condition must be taken into consideration, and they must be handled in a way that you would want to be handled if you were on the other side of the doctor’s table. You wouldn’t want to have your baby handled by a doctor who scowls every time she cries. You wouldn’t want a doctor who doesn’t listen to what you have to say and instead, insists on his diagnosis. You wouldn’t want a doctor who only cares about curing the disease and not what causes or aggravates it. These realizations made me even more determined in paving my way to become a doctor not only with the skills, but most importantly, with a lot of heart. Dr. Edward Trudeau said it best, that doctors must keep this aphorism in mind, that we, as doctors are called: “To cure sometimes, to relieve often and TO COMFORT ALWAYS.”