November favorites

Date: December 4, 2019
Time: 6:33 pm

Mood: 9 out of 10 smiley faces

I'm well into two months of unemployment and I'm getting better and better at it. I hit a low point a couple of weeks back where I felt so depressed and isolated, being shackled up in a tiny condo with nobody to talk to. But lately, I'm hardly ever bored. And these lovely things from my November are the reason why.

TV & Movies

• Broadchurch. My dad recommended this British crime-mystery drama on Netflix and I'm hooked. The show is about the picturesque coastal town of Broadchurch, where nothing truly bad ever happens, until an eleven-year-old boy is murdered and the townspeople are shookt. It's pretty much your run-of-the-mill detective drama, but what makes it so compelling is how well-built the world is. Each of the characters feel tangible, and I found it so hard to walk away from their juicy secrets. Come for the mystery, stay for David Tennant's extremely Scottish accent. 

• Doc Martin. I've been following this series for almost a year now, upon my mom's recommendation, so this is not technically a November favorite. But it deserves special mention here because I've been watching it more regularly, in line with a new career shift (more on this later!). This comedy series follows an ex-cardiovascular surgeon, Dr. Martin Ellingham, as a newly acquired phobia of blood forces him to quit his practice and move from upscale London to sleepy Portwenn to begin life as a primary care physician. Right of the bat, the plot had me hooked. It's a comedy about the British equivalent of Doctors to the Barrios. I loved watching Martin struggle to fit in with locals of his barrio, trying to understand their way of life while dealing with their daily ailments way beneath his level of training. But behind all the light gags and sarcastic quips, Doc Martin is a tender love story between a hardened ex-surgeon and the small provincial town he now has to serve.

• Midnight Diner. I started watching this in the wake of my Japan trip, being obsessed with all things Japanese. Midnight Diner is a soft-spoken anthology centered around a small restaurant in Tokyo that's only open when most of its residents are asleep. The episodes tackle a variety of topics, such as getting old, unrequited love, and surpassing your master, featuring characters from all walks of life. Each delightful episode is neatly wrapped up in 25 minutes or less. This show is a hidden gem that rewards those happy to stray from flashy fast-paced mainstays of television and walk down its quieter alleys.

• Silicon Valley. Jules introduced me to this show one day and the next thing I know, I've burned through 3 years worth of television and am currently downloading their last two seasons. This long-running HBO comedy features four nerdy dudes trying to get their startup off the ground, clawing their way into the upper echelons of Silicon Valley and fumbling (quite hilariously) along the way. It is such a riot to watch these nerds circuitously fail and succeed that I'm not sure whether I'm rooting for their success or hoping for another epic screw-up.

• Frozen 2. That's it. That's the write-up. A++

Shows

• Cats. Cats was... confusing. Fun. But... confusing.

Events

• This November I tried to deepen my understanding of how our health system works by attending two conferences about Universal Health Care. The first was the Health Leadership Summit by AC Health, which was held on November 21, and the second was UHC Building Blocks by UP Manila on November 27. I won't turn this post into a reflection paper, so I will spare you the boring details.

ASMPH faculty, alumni, and students in attendance at the Health Leadership Summit. Twenty pesos is yours if you can spot me here.

But let me take this moment to explain something about myself. I've slowly been getting my feet wet in the field of public health, an affair that began during my internship work at a community health center. During my work there, I found it tiring and almost futile to try and treat people on an individual basis, over the course of 10-minute consultations. To illustrate, I can treat a certain patient with tuberculosis, but what's the point of medicating them if they continue to live in the conditions that made them sick in the first place? Let's face it, doctors can't make people healthy for very long. 

But systems can. 

And I've realized that the best way I can put my time and efforts to good use is by working with systems and programs instead of individual patients. Hence my newfound interest in public health.

All this is a long segue I guess to making this happy announcement:

🌟✨🌟 I got accepted into Doctors to the Barrios! 🌟✨🌟

As someone who wants to work with systems, implement programs, and still do a little bit of patient care, I think it's the perfect setup. I don't know which barrio I'll be going to yet, but I will find out soon enough. 

It's scary. I'm terrified. But terribly excited too. I plan to still write as often as I can so people can know what life is like as a barrio doctor.

That's all for this post! Maybe one of these days I'll actually getting around to uploading pics from that Japan trip I keep referencing. But for now, to the barrios I go. 

At the UHC Building Blocks conference by UP Manila with fellow Doctors to the Barrios-to-be: Jeth, Paulo, Bel, and Rap (yes, how awesome is it that he's coming along too!)