Indexing Title: JPINGULs Medical Anecdotal Report  [05-08]

MAR Title: People need people

Date of Medical Observation: September 16, 2005

Narration:

I was doing a regular morning rounds with a referred patient in the internal medicine ward when a patient’smother approached me and asked if I was Dr. Pingul, so I said that I was.  The mother then added that her daughter was for the mission, and showed a letter from a doctor of PGH.

Apparently, the patients were excited for this mission, they came early, they prepared the necessary materials, they were happy that at last, the defect on their respective patients head will be finally repaired.  I was excited too, because it was the first time in my stay in OM to examine a patient with a meningocoele.  While I see patients like them on TV every once in a while, being featured, personally I never knew anyone with a meningocoele before.

We went down to the OPD, where I asked her to fill out information needed for the chart.  And the process of admission started.  There were 5 patients that came initially, they were so early that the OPD was still closed.  I took all their history and wrote it down in the chart.  A common factor was that the mothers recall taking medications early in the pregnancy, without knowing that they were already pregnant.  And when the patient came out via normal spontaneous delivery, the midwife or traditional healer noted the defect, hence they were advised to seek tertiary hospital consult.

I admitted one patient, then asked the OPD resident to admit the rest, while I prepared the OR schedule for submission to the ward nurse, OR nurse, and anesthesia residents.

To cut the story short, the mission generally went well for 4 days.  We were able to achieve the primary objective of helping the children and their families. We were also able to achieve the secondary objective of  having neurosurgery cases for the surgery and anesthesia residents.  Aside from the fringe benefits of having contacts with PGH-NSS, we were able to make friends and meet people from the Rotary of Makati.

The one month preparation finally paid off, when the patients were sent home with big smiles and thanks from their families.

INSIGHTS: (discovery, stimulus, REINFORCEMENT), (physical, PSYCHOSOCIAL, ethical)

We needed each other.  No one is alone.  What initiated the activity was the realization that the neurosurgeons at PGH needed help.  Help in the form of logistics, their hospital had a lot of patients waiting for an operation, the OR slots are limited, they needed to go out to find other means to operate. They considered several hospitals, one of which was Ospital ng Maynila, where they were received with approval, because the surgeons also realized that they needed the neurosurgery cases.

Of course the root of all is that the patients needed the doctors, the doctors needed the patients. Neurosurgeons needed other surgeons, and vice-versa. It goes on and on.

There would not be a coordinated activity if neither side humbled themselves that they needed others. People need people.  No person, no matter how self-reliant, independent, all-powerful, or super-capable, still needs someone else.  Inanimate structures and objects only come alive because there are people helping each other out.  A leader is useless without a follower, a teacher without a student, a doctor without a patient, the most skillful surgeon would not be able to operate if the ambulance or jeepney or taxi driver will not be able to bring the patient to the hospital.

Our very existence right now lies on the relations that we have.  Imagine if you were the only one inside this room, or inside the hospital, when you go outside for a walk, there is no one.  A person so wrapped up inside one’s self is nobody. Our identity as a person is influenced by those around us. So let us stop being selfish and start being more selfless, and with each other accomplish far greater things as compared with doing things alone.