The Last Issue
May 6, 1999
Thursday
Dear On-Line Journal of Internship Subscribers,
HELLO EVERYBODY!!! I had meant to send you an earlier journal issue (sometime during the last week of April) but unfortunately our computer monitor decided it was overworked and short-circuited. Mom put a sign on the computer: “Computer out of order, do not use.” And that was its status until earlier this week, so no e-mail journal.
This is such a “backlog” issue – my last official day as an intern was my birthday, April 30 (Friday). As part of the Community Medicine rotation (recall: weekly trips to Batangas where we stay from Tuesday to Saturday), we interns were required to do a research project. Ours was on the incidence of ascaris (roundworms) in kids who were dewormed (given albendazole, which is a medicine to make the worms go out of the intestine and into the stool) last week. Generally there were a lot of kids who had worms since (1) Laurel, Batangas was mainly a farming community, therefore people are in contact with the soil most of the time (roundworms are soil-transmitted worms); (2) kids play outdoors, pick up toys from the ground and sometimes put their hands and/or toys into their mouths, and (3) waste disposal and hygiene are far from ideal in rural communities. And since it was my birthday, I was the unfortunate one chosen to report (I protested, “But it’s my birthday!”, all the more my groupmates wanted me to report, as there would – hopefully – less questions/criticism – no one with any sense of courtesy would dare to offend a birthday celebrant).
FLASHBACK: I didn’t treat anyone on April 30 since three of us April birthday celebrants already sponsored a birthday-cum-end-of-internship celebration the previous Friday (April 23) at a lakeside resort. Laurel is one of the towns fronting the Taal Lake, but there wasn’t a place to celebrate in there, so we went to another town, Talisay. We got an eat-all-you-can package at the Batong Buhay Lakeside Resort for P150 per head, the menu consisted of grilled tilapia, afritada, chopsuey, rice, drinks (juice) and dessert. Food wasn’t spectacular, but it was a lot.
The grilled tiiapia was their specialty (of course, from Taal Lake) as the fish was really, really fresh. At 150 per head for 25 people, the bill came up to P3750 which we divided by 3 – each of us celebrants paid P1250. Not a bad deal. After this we headed home to Manila (the best part of the day?).
On April 30, we interns held a traditional bonfire to commemorate the end of a tiring year of service at the PGH. The bonfire itself wasn’t much – just some wood thrown into a big garbage can and lighted up, but it was a bonfire. This isn’t a “normal” bonfire at which you all sit around on the ground toasting marshmallows and singing songs to the accompaniment of a guitar (that would be hard to do, as there are about 240 interns).
It was an urban bonfire – more of an eating-drinking party with a pseudo-bonfire centerpiece and lots of photo opportunities and loud party music. Interns on duty were excused from their posts from 8 PM to 12 midnight so they could join the celebration. The highlight of the celebration had to be the 12 midnight countdown, much like a new year’s eve thing, where we raised our beers in a toast to the end of internship. Some people got involved in a food fight and a beer-bathing spree, but that wasn’t the main part of the celebration. There was also a symbolic burning of someone’s uniform, to represent the end of being students. Most uniforms, on the other hand, became canvases and notepads as many of us had permanent markers and were writing/drawing stuff on these clothes. The party allegedly ended at 2 or 3 AM with a few drunk interns who were not on duty. I left about 12:30 AM because I had to get some sleep before going to Subic Bay the next day with the Yang clan. Note: interns on duty that night went back to their posts at 12 midnight and were officially off-duty at 7 am the next morning. Some people felt shortchanged (nalugi daw sila) because 12:01 am to 7 am was already May 1 and not April 30 internship was supposedly up to April 30 only. They had 7 hours of “extra” time.
Our class also sponsored a photo exhibit at the PGH elevator lobby showing our pictures (of course) since first year med school. We were all younger and thinner (generally) before five years of studying and constant lack of sleep does a lot to one’s physique 😀 There were also pictures of all the blocks of interns. Most of them were taken in Batangas – just goes to show that people have time to take pictures in Batangas while doing community work, while in the hospital there isn’t much time for photos. Also part of the photo exhibit was a countdown to April 30, starting with “9 days to go” and ending with “1 day to go” (of course). We in Community Medicine did not really appreciate this countdown as we were in Batangas – that seemed like a vacation already. It wasn’t really internship [when away from the hospital]. The people in the hospital really “felt” the countdown. It must have been exciting.
The weekend of May 1 -2 I spent in Subic Bay with the Yang clan. Fun but short, as it took 7 1/2 hours to get to Subic Bay from Manila, a trip which would normally take only 2-3 hours. Traffic was really terrible going there on Saturday morning, which is why we got to Subic Bay at 2 30 PM and had lunch at 4 PM. I spent a lot of vacation time sitting in the car which was going at snail’s pace.
After internship ended, we still had 3 days of final exams – which did not count much anyway, as we already finished the rotations and earned passing grades (hardly anyone fails internship unless the intern committed a grave mistake, like losing a surgical specimen). These exams were mainly given to help evaluate us for the “Most Outstanding Intern” award in each subject. April 30 was the last day of internship (Friday). Exams were on May 3 to 5. I don’t regret going to Subic, as two extra days of reviewing wouldn’t have changed the exams’ outcome.
IT IS FINALLY OVER!!!!! I’m done with internship. Now I have to do the paperwork – transcript of records, certificate of graduation, etc. and attend the graduation ceremony on May 16 (Sunday) before settling down to review for the board exams in August. Good luck to all of us, and please pray for all of us taking this licensure exam. It’s time to cram 5 years of knowledge into 10 weeks or so 😀
END OF INTERNSHIP, END OF JOURNAL. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUBSCRIPTION WHO KNOWS, I JUST MIGHT START A NEW JOURNAL.
Ecstatically yours,
Jennifer Yang, M D. (Yehey! No more “Int. [Intern] Yang”)
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.
