ER: T.he O.ne S.top S.hop ME.dicine (naaaah)

When I entered Emergency Medicine, I had the illusion I would be doing things that I used to watch in the TV series E.R. How wrong I was. Along with technology, Emergency Medicine (EM) has evolved to a one stop shop for patients. I grew up in a province and the only time I've seen the inside of the emergency room was when I was rushed to the hospital because of high grade fever, from what I remember was I was in critical condition then. Connection? Technology has made it possible for people to get answers with just one click or to make things happen with just one push of a button. I've noticed that people who grew up with this exposure are impatient (STOP! Hear me out) as compared to the people who are used to doing things the manual way. Yes, I am used to technology but still I would rather go through the library (nope, not the online version) browse through hundreds of books and read through them.

I am not generalizing the whole health care system in this. I have received patients who simply couldn't afford to wait in line in the clinic simply because they couldn't wait to get their questions answered immediately. They expect it to be as simple as one click of a button. Some patient's I'm grateful to have because they are very willing to be interviewed for a while. Some simply expect that when a person has fever, the automatically have dengue and immediately ask for a CBC. Other kinds of patients just wouldn't want to walk around the different departments for their laboratories to be done. Hence the ER provides a way for them to be catered without them having to walk around.

Science have evolved with technology, yes, there are things we can do now that we aren't able to do before. Then there are things that are done faster than before, which brings me to patients expecting their laboratory results to come out like a instant photo machine. It can be done in some cases but in most cases that wouldn't be the norm. Let me just beg off with this, that some laboratory exams would require chemical reactions to occur, and it takes a while for that to be completed. Hopefully in the future mankind would be able to manufacture a one click diagnostic machine. That would be a great improvement, but still I would like my diagnostic exams to be accurate rather than fast. If being fast would mean more mistakes, I'd rather take a diagnostic examination that would be slow and accurate... but that's just me...

P.S. I still do get to do things that I used to watch at E.R. and maybe more. I get to see a wide range of cases, out-patient, urgent, critical... patients with vague symptoms having more serious problems. I learn, day by day, person by person, patient by patient, case by case.

a project

I've been hard at making a "presentation" for this past week... and my movie maker also decided to be stubborn, so files I've done earlier didn't seem to work. At last an initial output, hopefully will be able to do fix my movie maker or find somene with a movie maker.

An initial upload...just in case. There's something wrong with my movie maker. Hopefully, I would be able to edit this one.

Many thanks to those who allowed me to use their photos. unfortunately, there was a lot that I wanted to use, pero di kasya! :)

Here are the links to the contributors:

JunJazz

First Step

Kamoteus

Fotobumbong

Allan Barredo

Jhun Garcia

Inkblots

Marboysayno

The Housekeeper

Adicsapic

Diosa

DGM Dino

Jobarracuda

Manfrommanila

Laz'andre

Bullish

Jojie Alcantara

If you see any photo that was used without your permission and if I inadvertently missed you name, or you find any mistakes kindly PM me... C and C is welcome. Thank you.

Got Faith?

As I was taking the picture of this man I remembered one of the few things I've read in more than one book/magazine. I'm sure we've heard a lot of "if only" in our conversations with our friends, relatives, acquaintances or even with ourselves. Let's not deny that there are a lot of material "needs" in today's world. Technology has brought itself to be needed by people.

There's this thinking that if one did not get what he wanted, he wouldn't be happy. It's the "if I only had this or that, life would be better, I would be happier" thinking. Most of the time one doesn't realize that a life without that need is much better than having one. The absence of that need becomes a driving factor to such person to be discontented with what he/she has. And it becomes a cycle, you get what you need and with that you'd want more and more and more.

Taking this picture, I pictured myself, needing and needing and needing, and here is a man, crippled. Life hasn't been good for him, and you'd expect him to be this bitter person. Maybe even mumbling "If only I could walk, I would be happier..." But here he is, in a place and a job you'd least expect him to do. Selling faith. Got one? It's a need I'd like to have more and more of.

another day...

a quick post.... trying to clean out each and every account I have in the internet... and of course my computer... its just another way of trying to postpone reading my textbook. :P

far too many goodbyes

... and then yet again, in this part of the circle of life... I find myself reeling from the news as a read the message, never imagining that something like this would happen again and again and again in such short time. I have written this before and I am writing this again. Somehow, it doesn't hurt as much but still a bigger hole is there. An emptiness.

The first this happened was a year ago, and the days that followed once in a while I'd expect my uncle just walk-in the door and ask to borrow one of our books. I know he's gone but then somehow in those early days, I'd still imagine him walking in the gate. The blow it took to my grandma so hard that in the months that followed her health deteriorated. She didn't tell us. She'd just wake up early in the morning and go on with her panata... her routine... then one night, she woke up shouting "matay akon" (I'm dying). We rushed her to the hospital and the following days we discovered that her heart was failing... she's had pneumonia and the worse was that she wouldn't eat... Lola Masa was in and out of the hospital then, I was in back and forth between Manila and Baguio, between studying for the boards and being a caretaker... On the last day of September, she was at home just being discharged from the hospital, I just arrived home, taking a break from review. She was weak for the past days and hated the fact that she had to be dependent on others. She went into arrest a few minutes after I arrived, a few minutes after I said hello... She had to be placed in a respirator to buy time to say goodbye. They've said that at last she smiled, when I said hello, her last smile.

Past the first Christmas and New Year without my uncle and lola, a new routine, a new tradition was being established. I went back to manila to start my residency and furthered too my interest in photography. Just before the first year anniversary of my uncle, I receive yet again another message, Lolo Selo just died... mind reeling, heart pounding... last year was a series of deaths from my mother's side... and now, would it start from my father's side? would it? I hoped it doesn't. I took a controversial leave from my work. It was that time that people told me how proud he was when he read my name among the board passers. Very early in the morning, he went aorund Pangasinan announcing the news. He even arrived at our house waking up the then asleep and unaware household. The phrase I remember most when I was introduced at his wake, "Ay, alam mo ba, nagpamigay sya ng balut nung pumasa ka, tuwang-tuwa at inikot ang barangay hawak ang newspaper". A late time to say thank you. But thank you still.

And now, I think I would have a hard time to take a leave again, but I'll try.

... there's far too many goodbyes... a hello would be nice.

teardrops

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.

-=Alan Cohen=-

recall

We cannot change our memories, but we can change their meaning and the power they have over us.

-=David Seamans=-

In times when the day goes sour I favor shutting up going home and going to sleep... and most of the time I wake up refreshed and with a good sense of judging what have happened. That's most of the time... some times I'd need to go out and take photos, detoxify myself...

author

It's been almost a year for me since I've actively took up photography. Being freshly out of medical school I've realized that I've missed a lot of moments in my family's life. Maybe it has been a reason for me to take snapshots almost everyday of my life, maybe its because of the guilt in the back of my mind that I've almost been left out save for some photos they've taken from occasions in our family.

Adding to the guilt is the death of two of my relatives (and another one just recently), that I've decided to keep an archive of memories... to keep me from feeling left out. It has been my bridge to reminding me that I have still a lot more to discover and there are other lives aside from my own...

Starting this blog will hopefully be my repository of memories of my past and the present and of my dreams... thank you to my sister for this photo...

captured

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.