I don't tell people this story. It's too close to my heart to tell in person. But it is part of what drives me and provokes me to question myself: What am I willing to do?
My father was a passionate man and an intuitive physician. When me (age 9), my brother, and he lived in the Philippines, he had given up a career as a doctor in California to raise mangoes in his home town -- a small, rural town predominated by agriculture and fishing. Yes, I said mangoes. He had denied himself and us the luxurious lifestyle that he had built in order to pursue what he really cared for. With constant typhoons destroying the crops and without a stable source of income, we quickly fell to a less than modest lifestyle. Despite all the conditions we faced, my father still managed to practice medicine in the town.
There was no clinic with health care services in the town; the closest place to receive any form of decent treatment was an hour drive away into the city. When the townspeople became sick, they could not afford to travel the distance or the care they required for even the simplest things. Family, friends of family, friends of friends of friends of family came to rely on my father for his medical consultation. I would follow my father around as he made house visits to anyone who requested his help. He performed whatever diagnostics and procedures that he could, such as circumcisions, wound cleanings, acute and chronic illness diagnoses, etc. He even spent what little money he had to buy medications or supplies for those who could not afford them. Not once did I ever see him accept or ask for payment. This was his community and he served it better than the state did. People came to know him as "the mango doctor."
With our financial and home conditions depreciating even more, he became sick. But that didn't stop him from continuing to provide whatever primary care services he could offer to whoever needed his help. It wasn't until he passed away that I realized just how much of an impact he made on that town; one man who embodied the true essence of medicine. Medicine and health care beyond clinical walls.
I want to be like him. I want to practice medicine as he did. I want to serve as he did. But I've tasted what a better life for me is like. So everyday, I ask myself: what am I willing to do?
What are you willing to do?
