REFLECTIONS
REFLECTIONS : FILIPINO , ARE YOU ? AUTHOR Teresita Bacani-Oropilla , MD
“ Old time pals and old time gals , Where are your smiles today ? Friends of old , with hearts of gold , Where have you drifted away ?” - Excerpts from an old song -
One of the pleasures of aging is
recalling the “ good old days .” It has nothing to do with actual numerical time . To a kindergartener below five , the days spent coloring flowers and fire engines red and yellow , and counting numbers aloud while skipping rope are memorable . To a young teenager , the day he gave flowers to a gowned classmate on prom day was “ it .” To a graduating senior in the age of the coronavirus , the memory of his older sister marching to the music “ pomp and circumstance ” is one to be envied .
The past 65 years in the Louisville / Southern Indiana area provide a wealth of happy and poignant memories for the parade of Filipino doctors and their kin , who have come to stay or gone to other pursuits .
In the early 1950s , many of the original doctors who came for training in Kentucky ’ s university hospitals went back to the Philippines to set up practice with their enhanced skills . Some joined the faculties of their original universities and encouraged younger colleagues to follow suit , i . e . get extra training .
20 LOUISVILLE MEDICINE
In the meantime , Filipino physicians in other US cities , due to better opportunities , kinship , friendships or simply fleeing cold weather in the northern or eastern states , found the Bluegrass just right and migrated to Kentucky .
Having passed the State Boards or gone through the now-required arduous Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates ( ECFMG ) or Federation Licensing Examination ( FLEX ) exams , the licensed and partially licensed MDs filled the vacant and available government institutions and state psychiatric hospitals . They cared for the mentally challenged and in addiction treatment facilities . Others preferred to go to small distant towns , where they became institutions themselves , serving the populace where they were the first doctors to set down roots .
Others , having left solo lucrative practices and clinics in the Philippines , were very competent family practitioners and surgeons on their own , having performed appendectomies , Caesarian sections , repairing hideous emergency accident wounds on their own . However , for lack of licensing , they took on surgical assistant jobs , X-ray tech work or any available medically connected job .
Others , however , joined or established private practices , joined faculty positions in the teaching hospitals , became heads of depart-