Youngblood

Doctor Ma’am
By Andrea Q. Carigma
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:48:00 04/21/2009

After going through medical school, I pictured myself as a psychiatrist. The vastness and complexity of the human
mind have always fascinated me. Studying it is like watching a 3D movie. Treating its ailments is like solving a puzzle.
Psychiatry has always roused my curiosity.

I soon discovered that I have the capacity to listen patiently, no matter how tedious or perverse the talk is all about. I
have also the capacity to view an awkward situation from an intellectual perspective. And I abhor the stigma that
society tends to eye mentally ill patients with. With these qualities, I assumed that I had the basics of what makes for
an amiable psychiatrist.

But kin and colleagues alike advised me that psychiatry in the Philippines would be a career dead end, especially
where I come from. Not everyone can afford to pay for the services of a psychiatrist, especially in these times of
economic crisis and with the rise of HMOs (health maintenance organizations) that do not cover psychiatric
assistance. People tell me I can make better money if I took up Internal Medicine or Pediatrics or OB-Gynecology,
and then go into private practice.

Whoever said jumping out of the bandwagon is a horrible idea? And the statement that “I do not care about the
money” is a cliché? There is always beauty in novelty and diversity. There is always beauty in compassion and
benevolence.

I thought I would be a psychiatrist. However, while I was applying for my residency training, there opened up this
other opportunity. I was offered a teaching position at the University of the East, College of Dentistry. The institution
was in need of a Pharmacology professor. With idle time on my hands while waiting for the opening of the residency
program, I grabbed this opportunity and I agreed to teach for a semester.

In the beginning of the semester, I had it in mind that teaching would just be a temporary stint. However, as the days
went on, I began to feel a paradigm shift. I realized that the principles that I was developing in preparation for my
psychiatry training are very much applicable in the teaching profession. Gauging the students’ preparedness for a
subject is the same as reading the emotional cues of a patient with schizophrenia. Being impervious to the common
impression of students toward new teachers is just the same as blocking the sensual looks of a psychotic patient with
sexual pre-occupation.

Soon, I fell in love with my students. Seeing a class of students is like looking at a collage of artwork: some are
serene images, like the works of Van Gogh and Achenbach. Some are like the incendiary graffiti on the public walls
of EDSA. No one is the same as the other, but all of them are beautiful, even the most persistent and the most
annoying.

I fell in love with teaching. Every day is a rush. Planning your lecture and delivering it perfectly well always give me a
high. What I love most about teaching is the prospect of developing young minds and preparing them to become
more competent professionals. Each student is an opportunity to change the world. By teaching, you generate
something useful: you have the chance to leave a legacy.

Most people see my choice as one that is influenced by chance and tide. However, as I retrace the steps that I have
taken, I realize that there is one common factor in psychiatry and in education, and that is what makes me stay where
I am now. It is the love of seeing the beauty in things that other people often overlook. As previously mentioned, there
is always beauty in novelty and diversity. There is always beauty in compassion and benevolence.

Currently, together with my teaching career, I am practicing general medicine. I often get comments from colleagues
that my current choice of profession, not taking residency and settling for general practice is the easy road. They also
say that in the profession that I have chosen, I will definitely earn less. I always say: To each his own. As long as I
see that what I do has a purpose, I will keep doing it.