Rethinking

The line and the book that made me take philosophy and kept me there.

I'm re-reading Sophie's World and have been seeing things with fresh eyes, although these lines still share my sentiments. These are value statements, though, and I can't help wonder if we have the right to claim universality. But then again, these are indeed age old questions that have transcended time and culture. Although. . . are they the only ones?

Jostein Gaarder does admit that these questions appear after we have satisfied our basic needs. So then, maybe that's why it's so difficult to get absorbed in them. Most of the world is still struggling with these basic needs (yet, circles that have attained theirs, do not automatically go philosophical, but that is another matter). But... well, maybe the book never claimed this, maybe I have formulated this impression on my own... but... can we really say philosophical questions are more important than concerns about making a living? Or than social and economic issues? Or than current events and politics?

In my 4 years in the discipline, I kinda thought so. And I believe those in the department did so, too, most of them. Which explains the apathy and isolation, the nonparticipation. We took pride in being so... up there, so distant from what the worldly others thought important, so aloof and esoteric in our tower of abstractions, in the end, turning useless. All thought without action. All theory without application. Irrelevant and, eventually, mistaken. Because ultimately, thoughts, ideas, theories, beliefs, severely detached from reality and the world end up as hallucinations, delusions, illusions... mere speculation grounded on nothing. In the end, we become what we accuse of others. We become what we believe we least are... and not realize it.

A Dialogue on Unconditional Love

A: It's about reciprocation. It's obvious that unconditional love is the greatest love of all. The ideal. What we should aim for, as it models God's love for us. But is it wrong to hope for reciprocation? Is it unbiblical to want to also receive the kind of love one gives?

Cure vs. Treat: An Anecdote

Back in college, some of my philosophy classes conducted “objective” exams. That is, they asked identification/enumeration questions, instead of essay ones, but you can protest and defend your answer if it is different from the answer key.

There’s this one particular item that still haunts me to this very day. It’s a question about an analogy between something in philosophy and medicine. I don’t remember the exact question, but I remember the answer: cure the patient. I wrote treat the patient and it was marked wrong. People asked. The instructor reasoned that treating someone is not the same as curing someone. Treating someone was more like how you treat others, she said, and she was looking to the removal of the disease, as what the word ‘cure’ means. This was enough to appease the complainants. But she was wrong.

She forgot to account that a word may have several meanings, and treat does have different meanings. We had been using the word equivocally. In fact, in medical jargon, the word treatment is used a lot more than cure.

I knew this all along, but I never said anything.

On Professional Fees and Principles

Conversations with non-medical (former) classmates about my (soon-to-be) profession are usually steered towards a discussion of specializations-- what I want, what they hope I'd be, and/or what they believe is most profitable (hence, I should consider). Sometimes, the people who nudge me towards profit are also those from whom I have heard constant grievances regarding outrageous hospital bills and medical fees. So I'm not quite sure what they're driving at. Are they condemning the system or are they encouraging me to be part of it? Perhaps both?

Amy Tan's Faith vs. Fate Dichotomy

Some years ago, a friend who knew I was into writing recommended that I read Amy Tan's memoir, The Opposite of Fate. This year, I finally did in hopes of appeasing my frustrations in writing fiction. I loved how she wrote the memoir that I decided to read The Joy Luck Club, her first book. I liked it, too, that it convinced me to learn chess. I learned that fiction writing did not necessarily mean use of only pure imagination (I suck at that) and one can start as old as I am and still be good at it (Amy Tan began even older!).

But there was one thing about both writings that struck me, and not in the good way: her faith vs. fate dichotomy.

There is this passage in The Joy Luck Club:

My mother believed in God's will for many years. It was as if she had turned on a celestial faucet and goodness kept pouring out. She said it was faith that kept all these good things coming our way, only I thought she said "fate," because she couldn't pronounce the "th" sound in "faith."

And later, I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you're in control.

Medical Ethics is NOT Common Sense

Better view of the letter here

When it's about three major things in your life, you just can't help it.

Almost a year later, this still gets me all fired up. People should know this, and yet they don't. There's still much to say. The vehemence to talk about this more and convince you that this is ethical consumes me.

A Short Reflection on Neurology and Epistemology

Sometimes, med is fun. Last year, Neuro taught us history-taking and neuro exam by making us interact with actual patients in the ward under the supervision of a preceptor. We were, then, individually assigned to write a clinical report. I liked it.

Moments like these remind me why I took this path. I like talking to patients, getting their information and putting together the pieces while figuring out which information I still have to ask. Sometimes, I'd have to discern if they're lying. When I learn enough, I'd have to figure out what illness they have, like solving a puzzle. That's basically what it means to take a patient's history, the most important tool for diagnosis.

If I don’t know what the patient has after I have taken the history, I am in serious trouble.

-Alan Yudelt, MD

Para kay Froilan Richard T. Ramos

Hi. Hindi ko alam kung pano 'to sisimulan kasi hindi naman talaga tayo nag-uusap. Isang taon tayong magkaklase at isang buong sem magkatabi, pero ang tangi yatang mga salitang namutawi sa pagitan natin ay "pahiram ng bolpen" at "salamat." Kapag nagkakasalubong sa daan, minsan mag-iiwasan pa tayo ng tingin. Gayunpaman, sa katunayan, marami pa talaga 'kong gustong sabihin sa'yo na ikinakabagabag ko ngayon.