Is it ok if we talk about the PMA?


I am not really good at hosting. If this were a birthday party or a social function, I'd feel like an Alien host in a crappy Alien movie sequel. Buti na lang TBR lang 'to.



Now I dunno what rabbit hole TBR 12 went down to. For this is TBR 12.5 beta (e.g., I'm just trying. It's a long way to alpha). Yahoo.


Anyway, interested in TBR 12? I found it. Click here.


Now, I'm thinking of topics with high BI and CQ (bloggability index; coolness quotient).


Nah. The theme today is we should love threshing out the details of this almost timeworn schticks and Hippocratic frothing in the mouth about what ails this beloved bedeviled healthcare system of ours. Come again?


Umm in other words, I feel like revisiting the TBR 6 topic of Merrycherry, DTTB, MD, Youngblood.


But this time. Let's ask and answer two sets of specific questions.


1. The medical profession in this country, patterned after that in the US, is at heart a business profession. Do you agree? Is the medical profession noble? How does it compare with the nobility of those other traditionally noble professions of teaching and priesthood?


2. The medical profession is composed mostly of the vast hordes of young doctors, frontliners, moonlighters, GPs, DTTBs, residents, daydreamers, scrapers, and demerit collectors. What these doctors collectively feel is ultimately the indicator of what ails the profession. Incidentally, the members of the PMA are mostly these doctors. And yet, the PMA's higher-ups are doctors and even businessmen who are well entrenched in institutions with interests that are anathema to the interests of young doctors (hey, ang mga stock options natin jan). IS THE PMA RELEVANT TO MOST DOCTORS AND TO WHAT AILS THE PROFESSION?


Some ideas: I believe that the PMA should help make residency training a professional undertaking - professional in every sense of the word (yeah, starting with the salary). Let us make residency, among others, an end unto itself -- becoming rich and famous consultants is not the only end unto itself.


The bright future lies in a brilliant happy posse of residents not just thinking of becoming rich and famous consultants one day, and not only thinking of residency as a sacrifice, but also thinking that residency is an end in itself, that residency is noblest. Naks. Whatta lofty thought but you get the idea.


But I really dream of that one day. (I'm going Martin Luther King Jr. on your asses.)


Doc Willie Ong once wrote: "Young doctors, a silent majority, are beset with obstacles to practice imposed by senior doctors. For example, before one can practice in a hospital, there is the prerequisite of expensive stocks. If you have the money, you must still pass stringent requirements that may border on the bosses' whims. And there’s this turf-war to get control over patient referrals and admissions. Is it any wonder that young doctors, helpless and frustrated, quickly leave the country?"


Period.


I know that we're touching a raw nerve here. I apologize for posing in-your-face questions.


This is what writing is all about. This is the heart of blogging. Fierce views, balanced news (Inquirer). The truth shall prevail (the Philippine Star). Hehehe.


Draw your own conclusions. (Do so before 11:59 PM, Wednesday, 11 June 2008. Pwede na rin sa Thursday, same time. Hehehe. They don't have to be dissertations. Email me the links to your posts at two_infinite_loops(at)fastmail(dot)fm or post them here as comments.)


(And now the hard part. Spreading the word on short notice. Bahala na si Batman!)