doing vaginal repair

during our end of rotation with the obgyn department, we had a skills assessment session aka osce, an objective structural clinical exam. my favorite exam station was doing the episiorrhaphy, primarily because i practiced this at home using sponges, anatomy dissection tools, and of course youtube.

i had to practice a lot because during my first laceration repair on a real postpartum woman, i was being coached by the ever-supportive ob residents and i really did not know what i was doing until i finished my sutures. after that, i knew that i had to practice.

this was my home practice set.

here's one of my favorite practice vids showing an episiotomy repair.

i'm looking forward to the next osce skills stations, especially during my Surgery rotation.

eats in baguio

baguio is known for their 'gulay' (vegetables) and anything fresh. at the hangar, a walking distance from the maharlika market, one can find heaps of fresh produce at a cheap price, compared to manila at least.

i was only able to take photos of strawberries and several wine bottles, but let me tell you that their tomatoes and radishes are ridiculously ginormous.

if you are in baguio but you want someone else to cook for you, the next best thing to a home-cooked meal is finding the right resto. since baguio is a tourist town, expect a lot of foodie places to choose from.

i can vouch for the restaurants below because i've had eaten their food and i was not disappointed.

Good Taste

when in rome, do as the romans do. this restaurant offers the best bang for the buck. a single plate serves 3-4, and costs 100-150 pesos. it's a family foodcourt for both locals and tourists, not a dating place, so please keep your expectations reasonable. it's a stone's throw from the west side of burnham park.

  
Ketchup

this place right across the wright park is a small community of 5 theme restaurants: Canto, Green Pepper, Rancho Norte, Happy Tummy, and Rumah Sate. filipino food was our first choice so we decided to eat at Rancho. a single plate serves 2-3, and costs 150-250 pesos. their beef bulalo was generously meaty, and the baboy ramo liempo has that distinct savory, smoky taste. as usual, the vegetables are wonderfully crisp and fresh. not bad overall.

and oh, an alfresco branch of Pizza Volante is just beside Ketchup, but you might want to check out the new Volante Technohub branch and the original Volante Session Road branch instead.


Glenn 50's Diner

the servings are plated with hungry truck drivers in mind. you can choose from a variety of carbo-loaded meals, or you might want to dine light and eat skyflakes instead. yes, i think they have skyflakes in their menu. a plate can serve 2-3, and costs 100-150 pesos. plus the ambiance is unmistakably 50's; go figure. i'd go there again one of these days.

 

Solibao

the branch nearest to us was at the heritage mansion - contrary to the name, the place is not really intimidating so don't hesitate. this restaurant embraces the antique Spanish-meets-Cordillera woods concept; nothing fancy, maybe a bit pretentious but i guess all restaurants do that.

i liked the food. each dish serves 2-3, and costs 200-250 pesos. their special bagoong was a revelation, with a nice contrast to kare-kare. if you can, please ask the waiter where to find the bagoong and do leave a comment here. for now, supermarket bagoong will do. the crispy bagnet dinuguan was also divine, but my friends say the crisy dinuguan at Kanin Club at the Ayala Triangle was a better version.

but before you leave, you must try the puto bumbong, because it's only 50 pesos and it's a decent puto bumbong at that.

Author's note:

it seems that baguio has this love affair with bagnet: bagnet pinakbet, bagnet chopsuey, bagnet dinuguan, bagnet, bagnet, bagnet... bagnet equals clogged arteries, hypertension and kidney failure. i'm not complaining.

on my next food trip at baguio, i intend to eat at the Cafe by the Ruins for breakfast, Forest House for lunch, and Hill Station for dinner. we passed by Cafe by the Ruins but decided to postpone to another date because we were running out of time for pasalubong duties. in toto, Baguio equals foodie haven.

cine europa

last week i queued up at the EDSA Shangrila mall for free tickets for cine europa.

the first film i was able to watch was 'Almanya - Welcome to Germany', a tale about an overseas Turkish worker in Germany who seeks to return to his roots together with his Deutschified family. the first half was a veritable, laudable comedy, but the second melodramatic half was kind of meh.

the second movie i saw was 'O Xenagos', a tale about a young adult working as a tour guide amidst the orderly chaos of contemporary Athens. Set against the backdrop of the Greek crisis and a rowdy group of erasmus architecture students, the character questions his maturity, sexuality, and lifegoals; quite a ride, i should say.

the film fest runs from september 5 to 15 at the shang before going to the provinces. i might be able to catch another round of free tickets this week.

residency options

During benign rotations such as family and community medicine, I preoccupy myself with thoughts of the future. I always say to myself, the future remains uncertain, but I'm pretty inclined to do research again; it seems that an endless sense of inquiry is in my very blood.

Anyway, as I was looking for job vacancies in PCHRD, Philhealth, and PIDS, and several hospitals offering residency training, I came across this website again, which I think I've encountered for the first time three years ago. 

 

I answered the 130-item questionnaire that asks about life values, and I was surprised with the results!

PATHOLOGY

I only thought of pathology as an alternative; I never thought that I would fit in. Apparently, my life values are similar to most pathologists.

PSYCHIATRY

When I had psychiatric patients at the outpatient and ambulatory clinics last year, I was seriously considering a future in psychiatry. But recently, someone narrated to me her experience at the national center for mental health, which was quite revealing. There was one pavilion that housed criminal psychos, and I fear that my life will be put in danger if I was their psychiatrist. 'Nough said.

RADIOLOGY

I envy their lifestyle: regular work hours than most on-call doctors. If I were to train in radiology, I would like to apply in big private hospitals because that's where the latest technology is. However I am quite unsure if I can make it big in Davao or elsewhere, likely because radiology works like a monopoly in any hospital in the provinces.

INTERNAL MEDICINE

My batchmates see me as a future internist, but I am not sure about this. Ward work is stressful and the hours are long; I prefer rigid working hours and exploring life outside medicine.

OB-GYNE

I once wanted to become an obstetrician primarily because I want to see mothers give birth to healthy babies and witness God's gift of life in all its wonder and mystery. However, just like IM, you are always on-call, because many pregnant patients get fully dilated at the most unholy hours.

ANESTHESIOLOGY

Among all residency choices, this is my first. It's critical care at its best. I look to Florence Nightingale as my inspiration, among other people of course. She was an intensivist at the height of war, taking care of wounded soldiers, a historic scene that resembles the modern post-anesthesia care unit. She was also a self-taught statistician, taking notes for patient census; not a lot of people know this. Anesthesia as a field is a conglomerate of medicine and other specialties in the perioperative setting. It is 50% brains (drug effects, physiologic changes) and 50% skills (intubation, lining) ; that's why I like it a lot.

FAMILY PRACTICE

One thing that bothers me is that I get easily frustated with geriatric patients. They are stubborn when I give medical advice, or sometimes, I just don't feel like they're listening.

PEDIATRICS

No matter how much I deny it, I like giving advice to parents regarding their children. Also, I like to hear a kid cry during vaccination.

 

community health center

the community health center near Singalong, Malate, Manila,  a two-storey mixed wood-concrete edifice with ostensibly quaint features, may reek of malady and gradual decay, but at the same time, it embodies the rich history and strong sense of community inspite of circumstances. in fact, the health center houses a large mural that seems rather expensive and would rather belong in a national museum; however even the philippine general hospital has a lot of expensive paintings in its lobby so i guess this phenomenon is not new.

the health center is just one of the many community health offices in the country reflecting the dilapidated health system today, something that is in really bad shape and in need of constant resuscitation. i guess the dose of monetary adrenaline injected into the system was just not enough, or probably, the selfless hands that were in charge of the system got tired eventually. indeed it is difficult to expect much when you have multiple organ failure.