Students for International Mission Service (SIMS)

Outlook 1998

Philippines by Laura Anne Teasley, sophomore, School of Medicine

Laura Teasley stands in the misty tropics of the Philippines.

Toward the end of my first year of medical school, I was fortunate enough to be awarded an American Medical Association (AMA/LLUSM chapter) scholarship. This helped me travel to the Philippines through the Students for International Mission Service (SIMS) program to the Seventh-day Adventist-run Bacolod Sanitarium and Hospital. This facility is located in the port of Bacolod, in the prince of Negros Occidental on the island of Negros in the Philippines.

Having grown up in Sierra Leone, West Africa, I had initially applied to return to Sierra Leone specifically to work in the Adventist Masanga Leprosarium. My father, a civil engineer, had designed and constructed the water system for that facility. Naturally, I was drawn to return as an adult and to offer my services during my summer vacation. This turned out to be only a dream; civil war had re-erupted on Valentine's Day, and the Leprosarium had been dismantled.

Fortunately, Juan Carlos Belliard, director of SIMS, looked at my list of desires, and came up with the Bacolod facility. On first inspection, nothing seemed farther from my mind than traveling to the Philippines. I knew very little about the culture, and was unfamiliar with the languages. In addition, the fact I knew no one there seemed daunting. It turned out to be a fortuitous turn of events.

The Philippines is composed of about 7,700 islands, roughly grouped into four districts. Negros is a large island located in the Visayan Peninsula. Although many islands have several different dialects that are spoken, English is the official language that is taught within the schools. Hence, the medical staff spoke fluent English.

The facility is a 100-bed hospital that once was located in the sugar cane plantations and used as a sanitarium. As Bacolod grew and modernized, the city slowly built up around the facility which converted to a hospital. However, there were still many signs of agriculture immediately outside of the gates.

Any anxiety about not knowing people disappeared within the first 30 minutes of arrival. The doctors, nurses, and resident physicians were very communicative and friendly. I soon settled into a routine of assisting in surgeries, practicing surgical knots, making internal medicine and surgical rounds, and manning the emergency room at night. Each morning, we had devotional together at 7:30 a.m., just prior to rounds. There were vespers on Wednesday and Friday evenings, and regular Saturday church services.

Our facility was not a charity hospital; the government hospital took the charity cases. We did, however, head over to the neighboring island of Panay to run a charity clinic for two days in the province of Dumarao. We were joined by the Panay Adventist missionaries. Basically, our group consisted of a surgeon, dentist, internal medicine doctor, and a pediatrician. Six nurses, a two-person microbiology team, and I finished off the group.

With the resident skills of a person who has just finished her first year of medical school, I was assigned the task of taking vital signs. We visited with the mayor of Dumarao, and then headed up to the mountain district of Astorga, arriving at 10:30 on a Sunday morning. More than 400 people were waiting for us. I took the vital signs of every one. We worked all day, with one 20-minute lunch break, until 10:30 p.m. A typhoon hit, we lost electrical power and water (electric pump), but kept going by candlelight. We awoke at 5:30 a.m., and left for the town of Dumarao and saw about 200 patients there.

In Bacolod, I connected with the local recreational diving group, and was invited to participate in a government-sponsored research program. I spent my free time underwater, counting and later removing Crown-of-Thorn seastars from the Marine Sanctuary of Tambobo. I also made friends within the medical and the diving industries. It was a wonderful way to get to know people.

While in the Philippines, I saw hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, countless urinary tract infections and scabies infections, thalessemia, Hodgkin's lymphoma, and Hashimoto's goiter. I assisted (scrubbed in) on appendectomies, the removal of a fibroadenoma, many sebaceous cysts and diabetic abscesses, cesarean deliveries, and a thyroidectomy.

Overall, the four weeks spent in Bacolod flew by. My own sense of confidence grew with each diagnosis and surgery. The doctors and nurses were absolutely wonderful, patient, and happy to instruct me throughout my stay. I can't recommend my experience enough to any prospective missionary students.

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