Jennifer Marie J. Yang, MD

I attended a special book launch today – editors Ronnie E. Baticulon, MD and Marjorie Evasco, PhD put together this carefully curated anthology of Philippine short stories on healing under the auspices of Milflores Publishing. After the usual short speeches by the authors, publisher and University of the Philippines Manila administration folks, we heard two authors who read their works to the audience. Susan S. Lara (one of the short story authors) and the two editors then had a book signing. It was good to finally meet and speak to Doc Ronibats in person – we are both faculty at the University of the Philippines College of Medicine and graduates of the 7-year INTARMED program (and follow each other on social media).

Looking forward to reading this book, and using its material to infuse some Filipino works into the Medical Humanities elective next year! I mentioned to Dr. Evasco that I teach an elective for medical students and we’ve had it for 3 academic years already (2023-2025) at St. Luke’s Medical Center College of Medicine. She herself teaches about pathographies at De La Salle University, and also mentioned I’m probably the first MD she’s met who teaches the subject – probably because [as far as I know] I’ve got the first class of its kind in the medical school curriculum. Grateful to the progressive school administrators who allowed me the opportunity to do so!

The book is available online on the Milflores Publishing website, and online selling platforms Lazada and Shopee Philippines. I’m sure there are brick-and-mortar stores that sell the book too. I’m happy I got my [autographed] copy of Vital Signs at the book launch, plus Ronibats’ first book, Some Days You Can’t Save Them All… which I’ve heard about for so long but just realized today that I didn’t have a copy! A quick post-launch stop at the registration table changed that very quickly.