Reaction to Fidel Abalos' article

A scatterbrain. He lacks congruence and organization. The title is inappropriate; all I read was his presumed knowledge on the prevalence of the practice. If he wants to slay Medical Tourism in this article, he should have cited incidences of "undesirable acts" pertaining to the topic (and for the record, the practice isn't solely confined to Aesthetics). Statistics from a credible body would have given the write up some weight. Oh well...

I wonder if the guy knows that the owner of The Freeman (Dr. Jose R. Gullas) also runs a hospital which employs medical professionals whom he has now tagged as undesirable by his "majority claim" of 3 isolated cases totally unrelated to the topic he planned to write about. And yes, Vicente Gullas Memorial Hospital has Aesthetic Services. I guess, their work is undesirable too (based on the writer's branding).

With a little research and networking, he could have written better. There was no closure on where the Health Practitioners stand when it came to Medical Tourism... Now I wonder how many of his works were done at the last minute, on a whim, biased, and solely relying on his "stock knowledge" just to catch a deadline.

The unfair Mr. Abalos

Dear Mr. Abalos,

I read your article yesterday with dismay.

I am Dr. Judy Y.Lao-Tan, a graduate of the Cebu Institute of Medicine in 1975. I trained in Internal Medicine in Cebu Velez General Hospital then proceeded to UP-PGH for my one year in Hepatology and 2 years in Gastroenterology.

I came back to Cebu City to set up my practice. All these while I thought I was being patriotic only to learn from your article that we who stayed in our country are undesirables.

I have seen a lot of doctors in our midst who did their calling of practicing medicine which is far and beyond what is their duty, one classic example is during the times of the earthquake last October and the typhoon Yolanda, I was extremely proud of these doctors especially when most of them were my former students.

I think you have been quite unfair in making that sweeping statement and I hope you will redress the situation.

I remain,

Judy Y. Lao-Tan, M.D., F.P.C.P., F.P.S.G.

Professor in Internal Medicine

Department of Internal Medicine

Cebu Velez General Hospital

Cebu Doctors University Hospital

Chong Hua Hospital

Cebu City 6000