DOH chief gets highest award for surgeons

MANILA, Philippines - The American College of Surgeons (ACS) will confer an honorary fellowship award, the highest award for surgeons, on Health Secretary Enrique Ona.

This is the first time that ACS is conferring the award to a Filipino doctor.

“I am greatly honored and I humbly accept the conferment of the honorary fellowship by the American College of Surgeons,” Ona said.

The health secretary said he considered the ACS award as recognition not only for himself but also for the contributions of Filipino surgeons to the international surgical community.

He will receive the award during the 98th Clinical Congress in Chicago, Illinois slated Sept. 30 to Oct. 4.

The Department of Health (DOH) said ACS is a scientific and educational association of surgeons founded in 1913. It aims to improve the quality of caring for surgical patients by setting high standards for surgical education and practice.

The College currently has approximately 78,000 members in 103 chapters around the world, including the Philippines.

Since its establishment, the ACS has awarded honorary fellowships to individuals who possess international reputation in the field of surgery or medicine, or to those who have rendered distinguished humanitarian services, especially in the field of medical science.

Honorary fellows include Dr. William Stewart Halsted (United States, 1917), who introduced the radical mastectomy in treating breast cancer. He started the first formal surgical training program in the US.

Ona is recognized as one of the top surgeons in the field of vascular surgery and organ transplant in the Philippines, having trained in both the US and United Kingdom. He is certified by both the Philippine Board of Surgery and the American Board of Surgery.

He established the first training program in vascular and organ transplant surgery in the country, for which he was awarded one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) in medicine in 1979.

He also performed the first liver and pancreas transplant in the country and the first multiple-organ transplant (liver/kidney, kidney/pancreas) in Asia.

Prior to his appointment to the DOH in 2010, Ona served as executive director of the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI).