Community Medicine: Easing into Internship
May 11, 1998
Monday
Hello everyone!
l’ve just started internship (May 1) and my first rotation is Community Medicine (ComMed) for 2 weeks. Actually, ComMed is a 6-week rotation but my schedule calls for 2 weeks now in May, and 4 weeks in April next year. Along with 3 other classmates, I’m assigned to [barangay] Ticub, Laurel, in the province of Batangas. It’s a fruit farming community about 3.5 km from the poblacion (municipal center). I go there Tuesday morning and come back to Manila on Saturday afternoon. However, this coming week I’ll be there until Thursday only, since on Friday I will be shifting to the Ob-Gyne department for an 8-week stay there.
Ticub is an upland barangay, meaning the 3.5 km is mostly mountain road – some parts cement, some parts dust (“gabok”, in local lingo). It’s accessible by foot (yes, I’ve done that), motorcycle (local folks say “single” and pronounce it “SING-gol”), tricycle or jeepney; however, tricycles and jeepneys are few. We live with a foster family. Our place has electricity, which is good; however, El Niño cut off the water supply. Normally they have a hand-pump (deep well) but it “runs” on rainwater. Since El Niño has brought little or no rain, we have water delivered for P60 per drum [60 Philippine Pesos]. Bathing is done via tabo (dipper) and pail, and flushing via pail too. About half a pail would do for taking a bath. To bathe, you stand on a basin in order to catch the water you poured onto yourself with the tabo. The basin’s contents (soapy water) is then used for the toilet flush.
OK, that’s all for now. I’m glad that we have a holiday today (election day)^ so I can do my mail.
Some notes:
* A barangay is the smallest local government unit in the Philippines, like a village or ward, and multiple barangays make up a municipality/town/city. The word barangay is thought to be derived from balangay, a type of boat used in pre-colonial Philippines.
^ Election day in the Philippines, unlike in the USA or elsewhere, is a holiday so people can go to the polls without worrying about having to go to work or school before/after voting.
JOINT is the Journal of INTernship, a series of email messages to family and friends (“journal subscribers”) written during my yearlong medical internship from May 1, 1998 to April 30, 1999. Internship is one of the requirements before taking the Philippine Physician Licensure Examination (also known as the Medical Boards). Journal entries were edited for clarity in January, 2020. Read more about it in the first blog post, Introducing JOINT.
