“The Thomasian physician has been adequately prepared and trained to be patient-friendly and a committed person of the medical discipline”
Cabie-Santos, HMA, editor in chief; Gonzales III, AB, managing editor; Guzman-Mangahas CS, associate editor; 2023. Imbued With Unending Grace, 1st ed. Metro Manila, UST FMS Batch 1998, publishers).
This 210-page coffee table book, the first of its kind in the 152-year history of the UST Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, is replete with researched materials that define a Thomasian physician after spending four years medicine proper and 25 years of practicing the profession.
The book, written in an easy-to-read style, stands out as a physical legacy of a closely knit class, with more than 200 members, who shared the same dreams 25 years ago as they were individually proclaimed doctors of medicine by the UST administration during their commencement exercises.
In this sense, the book becomes necessary. which underlines the book’s unifying theme.
These dreamers, some of them unable to attend the book launch because they have answered the call of the greatest physician, have their pictures – a photo shoot before graduation day and how they look 25 years later, partly filling up pages of the hardback coffee table book.
Cabie-Santos said it aptly, “between the lines of accomplishments and achievements are the unspoken hours when colleagues provided courage to the hopeless, strength to the weak, and salt and light to the distraught and lost.”
It appears to us the book, which blazes a trail for younger – and even older – jubilarians gave those who marked 25 years of practice in clinics, laboratories, hospitals and the academe the freedom to be innovative and write with the speed of newsroom wordsmiths hounded by an intolerant deadline.
Through the team’s commitment, the editors, the production team, the researchers, the principal photographer and the rest who lent a significant hand were able to capture for posterity, in pictures and texts, spectacular images of the pontifical university whose medical school began on May 28, 1871.
The book not only has strengths in the researched materials, which would be good for scholars and younger generations of aspiring medical students.
It also features the “history of medicine” mural by national artist Vicente Manansala (1910-1981), a cubist painter and illustrator, and one of the first abstractionists in the Philippine art scene, and inserted international timelines of a pandemic that changed the globe, and a narrative on one of the pioneers of UST medicine.
The current university rector, Rev..Fr. Richard Ang, OP, expressed hope the book will “inspire you to achieve your goals for God and your country.”
The university rector during the jubilarians’ eight semesters in medicine proper, Rev. Fr. Rolando V. de la Rosa, OP, PH.D., himself expressed his faith that the jubilarians will see themselves “not as a flickering candle, but a torch burning with love for UST, spurring our fellow Thomasians to pursue greatness — greatness in purpose and achievement — for ourselves and our loved ones, for the country and, above all, for God.”
The images express a consolidated concern: the University since it was founded on April 28, 1611, which makes it the oldest Catholic university in the region; a chapter on where luminaries, like Dr. Jose Rizal, walked; a chapter on A Legacy of Service.
There are also chapters on the Thomasian Walk of the Valiant; Vis-a-vis: Advancing Cancer Research One Gene Mutation At A Time; and The Valiant Physician.
We see in this book the sleepless moments of the editorial team composed of the Canada-based Dr. Cabie-Santos, and the Manila-based Dr Gonzalez, managing editor; Dr. Guzman-Mangahas, associate editor; and Paul Quiambao, principal photographer, who had zoom meetings every now and then starting March this year when the project proponents conceptualized the book.
We see the coffee table book as worth keeping on the receiving room center table to be read or on library racks for researchers to leaf through.
It helps historians and scholars go through the history of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery in this oldest medical school in the oldest university in Southeast Asia, in a smooth language that is easy on the eyes and effortlessly understood.
The book appears to have succeeded in capturing what may well be the legacy of the jubilarians which can be bequeathed to others who may also be walking the same dreamer’s path of an aspiring physician.
The book, while it certainly will be cherished by the jubilarians and their families, will also be significant to scholars and researchers, not the least those who dream of hospitals and clinics.
The Thomasian physician has been adequately prepared and trained to be patient-friendly and a committed person of the medical discipline.
This book deserves a place on any receiving room table and on library racks.
(The author taught in both undergraduate and graduate courses in different universities before he started freelance writing)