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Chapter 8: "International Medical Graduates Are Tested Every Stepof the Way"
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Family History Chapter 8 "International Medical Graduates Are Tested Every Step ofthe Way" Edgar Gamboa I was born in Cebu City, Central Visayas, in 1948, the second of nine children . Cebu was where the Spanish conquistadors, led by Ferdinand Magellan , first landed in 1521. It was also the island where Magellan was killed by the natives led by the first Filipino hero, Lapu-lapu. So the Spanish influence in Cebu is strong. My father's father was a Spanish haciendero Dandowner] from northern Spain, and his mother was a mestiza, or half-Filipina and half-Spanish. My mother's father was a very successful businessman and the foremost importer of American-made products in the region. My wife Lucie's family is one of the oldest and wealthiest families in Cebu. Her maternal grandfather, who was educated in Spain, was the city's first physici~n. He also started the island 's still-existing electric company, a shipping company, and several other establishments. Lucie's father was a family physician who practiced for at least ftfty years. My father was a self-made man. His father died at an early age. As the only son, my father had to work very hard to support the family. He wanted to attend medical school but he couldn't afford it, so he settled for accounting , attending evening classes while working full-time. Later, married with four children, he attended and graduated from law school. Copyrighted Material 127 128 • Edgar Gamboa An Anti-Martial Law Student Activist The reason that I came to the United States was mainly political. I had been accepted to medical school, the Cebu Institute ofMedicine, in 1970. When the Philippines was placed under martial law in 1972, I joined the Christian Social Democrats, an organization of political moderates, founded by Senator Raul Manglapus. I was president of the Medical Student Government and a member of the National Council of Medical Students, and we used to regularly demonstrate in the streets, protesting extensive government abuses. Fred Dimaya, one ofmy best friends in med school, was an active underground student activist for the KM [Kabataang Malcabayan], a student Marxist-Maoist group. In 1972, he actually left for the hills to join the Communist movement. He served as a volunteer medic for the "people's army." He was later captured, imprisoned, and tortured. I had the chance to see Fred again soon after his release from prison. He was a broken man. I heard later that Fred was able to put his life back together. He had met his wife, a student nurse activist, "in the hills," and they had been captured together. I understand that he is now a religious minister. I graduated from medical school in 1974. At the time, my intention was to stay in the Philippines. But I also fell in love with surgery. I saw how significantly one could help others by being a good surgeon. I wanted to work with the rural and urban poor. I did my postgraduate internship at the Veterans Hospital in Quezon City, where surgical technology and science fascinated me. After that internship, I went back to Cebu to specialize in general surgery. Many medical graduates and friends were leaving for the United States en masse, but I still felt it was not right to leave behind a country in disarray. Ironically, med graduates from the University of the Philippines, a hotbed of nationalistic fervor, were the first to leave for the United States in droves and contributed more to the "brain drain" phenomenon than those from any of the other six medical schools in the country. I vividly remember one incident, when med students were demonstrating against the administration, the dean of the medical school remarked: "All you idealistic students. Your concerns about the poor and about the national state of health, these are all well and good. But soon after you graduate and start your own families, you will quickly grow up and decide to leave the country. I guarantee it." Then he challenged the student body, "Those who are not going to leave the country, why don't you stand up so we can see you?" I remember only three of us stood up out of a group of fifty or sixty students. We boldly said, "We can promise you, sir, that we are not going to leave and abandon our homeland. We have a responsibility to care for it." As it turned out, out of the three...