Month: January 2022
Mexican Staples with Filipino Heritage
Today I read an article by medical anthropologist Dr. Gideon Lasco, writing for Sapiens, an online magazine of sorts for all things anthropology. He explains how tequila and mezcal, long associated with Mexico, owe their existence to Filipino distilling techniques. In the same vein, the Filipino fermented coconut drink tubá also made its way to […]
A Holistic Approach to Dancer Wellness
That’s a wrap! Thank you World Dance Alliance Singapore for having us speak about the holistic approach to Dancer Wellness today, January 23, 2022 (Asia). Optimizing dancer health needs to address the physical, emotional and mental aspects of health – while you can focus on just one aspect, we must recognize that all of these […]
Communication and its Importance in Rehabilitation, Part 2
In the last blog post, we tackled communication’s importance in a patient’s active participation in rehabilitation and adjusting to their “new normal” after a life-changing event. The rehabilitation team’s patient-centered care involves communicating information in a timely manner, promoting a supportive environment and building good relationships with the patient and family and delivering both bad […]
Communication and its Importance in Rehabilitation, Part 1
A recent blog post tackled the importance of communication in healthcare, and how good communication can lead to better patient outcomes, safety and population health. I also wrote about how I enjoyed a course on healthcare communication in my last semester of school. One of the required assessments for the course was a final research […]
Communication in Healthcare
I’ve been interested in language and linguistics since I was a teenager, probably stemming from a trip to Europe when I was fourteen and seeing how words in different languages were similar to and different from each other. I’ve also purchased and read too many books on the history and evolution of the English language. […]
I’ve graduated… now what? Reflections on the two-year (expensive) sabbatical from clinical medicine.
I have been meaning to write this piece for a while but life got in the way. We’ll start with the celebration from December 20, 2021: Somehow the story of my life centers around studying things that are not easily explained, like physiatry and performing arts medicine (in contrast, everyone pretty much knows what a […]
Awkwardly yours: MD, MCHealth&M
Yeah, I’d prefer “MD, MCHM”. It’s much shorter and easier to write. Perhaps this is one reason why people proceed to a PhD… because that supersedes the weird “MCHealth&M” after their names and they don’t have to write that anymore. [half-joking here] For reference, here is the university policy that governs those post-nominals: https://policies.anu.edu.au/ppl/document/ANUP_006804
Life in Home Quarantine
After exiting hotel quarantine or “facility-based quarantine” on day 5 or 6 (depending on when you check out), you can head home to complete 14 days of quarantine. The reasoning behind this is sometimes symptoms appear up to 14 days after exposure to COVID-19. Generally though, the probability that symptoms will appear after day 5 […]
What to do in hotel quarantine?
It wasn’t bad. I treated the 5 night/6 day stint as a staycation. Also, being cooped up in a room for several days wasn’t so bad for me since I am an introvert and can entertain myself pretty easily. Read more about quarantine in this post. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I’m just going to […]
Hotel Quarantine Chronicles
In the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, international arrivals to the Philippines are required to do a few days of facility quarantine before proceeding to home quarantine. The duration for both facility quarantine and home quarantine depends on whether the traveler is vaccinated or unvaccinated, and whether he/she is coming from a “green” country or […]