The Road Less Traveled

Doctors Willie and Ana Liza Ong pursue a mission of healing and education

By Mike Gomez

I believe that God has a plan, a mission, if you will, for every one of us. By the grace of God, one could discern what that mission is, and it is one's duty to follow the right path toward that goal. Some may go astray from that path, and it is their duty, with the help of God's grace, to get back to the right path."

    This quote from the late Dr. Antonio Samia was lifted from a wonderful book, Legacy of Medicine: Interviews with Distinguished Filipino Internists, in which Dr. Samia was one of those interviewed.

    The author? None other than University of the Philippines cardiologist Willie Ong, a brilliant but unassuming young physician who not too many doctors have personally met, but who most Filipino doctors know for his invaluable Medicine Bluebooks. Dr. Ong borrowed that quote from Dr. Samia to sum up his own life and struggles as a medical student, as a medical practitioner, and as a medical servant of God.

    Having successfully hurdled every step towards the much coveted fellowship in Internal Medicine, and in his specialization as a cardiologist, he has chosen, instead, the less trodden path towards the service of the Filipino through the practice of his profession, his advocacy efforts, and the publication of useful handbooks and inspirational writings.

    Dr. Willie has embarked on other endeavors that would enhance the practice of medicine in the country for the benefit of the majority of the Filipino masses. It would seem difficult to believe that those books, which can be spotted on shelves in National Bookstore and other outlets, were published without any hope for financial gain, but purely as a means of helping the Filipino physician. One's frigid incredulity would soon melt away, however, upon actually meeting the unassuming, yet strangely charismatic Dr. Willie.

Equity for the Filipino Patient

    For those who aren't already toting it around as a quick reference, the very popular Medicine Bluebook is a handy

    sized therapeutics manual designed to help the young Filipino doctor. Dr. Willie's references and resource materials include American journals and recently updated textbooks. However, he improves on these guidelines by adding a dash of Filipino flavor, which means listing and recommending medicines available in the Philippines and suiting such choices to the Filipino's purchasing ability.

    He also recomputes therapeutic doses to be more appropriate for Filipino body types, noting that most of the patients a Filipino doctor encounters are hardly as corpulent as the western people whom the foreign guidelines targets. Dr. Willie recounted how some American doctors who come to the Philippines prescribe the usual larger dose, thereby causing their patients to suffer complications.

    "The problem with American textbooks is we do not have all their drugs and all their laboratory tests, so we cannot follow their algorithms," explained Dr. Willie. "This is the way we practice medicine in the Philippines," he said, referring to the latest edition of the Bluebook.

    Dr. Willie stressed that everything in the Bluebook is evidence-based and founded on acknowledged practice guidelines. While there are many such guidelines in use at institutions all over the world, he said he chooses the most appropriate and adopts it to the Philippine setting. "Foreign guidelines are too detailed, so I modify them. I make them into short cuts which are still acceptable and correct within the normal practice," he pointed out. "I don't impose new medicines or those not backed by clinical evidence."

    One important principle followed in preparing the Bluebook is the often

    ignored consideration of pharmaeconomics. He said the most affordable medicines are listed in the Bluebook because if the doctor does not consider the cost of drugs, the patient may not be able to afford the therapy, thereby defeating the purpose of seeking medical attention. As expected, such a conviction places a great deal of responsibility on the author of the guidelines who is caught up in a constant balancing act between opting for the most effective medicines against the most affordable.

    "I am willing to sacrifice a little quality for equity for more people," said Dr. Willie. Therapeutic success is, after all, greatly determined by the ability of the patient to avail themselves of the treatment.

    The Bluebook would never have been published without the support and persistence of Dr. Ana Liza R. Ong, the serene and steadfastwife and mission partner of Dr. Willie. "I was very ashamed to do the first one," the modest Dr. Willie confessed. "I could not get myself to do it; but Ana Liza got the manuscript, typed it all, and published it by herself."

    A young doctor from the Philippine General Hospital told this writer that the Bluebook is like her bible. It is published every two years and is now on its third edition.

    Respected leaders in different medical fields are contributing authors of the book.

Food for the Soul

    Legacy of Medicine: Interviews with Distinguished Filipino Internists, the latest publication of Doctors Willie and Ana Liza, provides medical students, doctors, other health professionals, and even lay readers with insights into and inspiration from the lives and mission of select luminaries in the medical profession. One doctor confided to Dr. Willie that he got goose bumps while reading the book. "That is what I wanted-that some will be touched by what the doctors said in the interviews," he said.

    Dr. Willie takes pride in the evangelizing aspect of this book-from cover design to contents. "If I should boast, I will boast in the Lord, as St. Paul says," he declared. "It's really a religious book masquerading as an ordinary book." While the book, by itself, is an inspiring piece of work, the process of its production, which gave the physician interviewees occasion to get in touch with their own souls and innermost thoughts on their profession, was a valuable salvific activity all its own.

    Dr. Willie says in his book that he believes that medical schools should equally emphasize the "why" of being a doctor and not just the "how." "If we cultivate the right values, then the knowledge and the skills will follow."

Piecing History Together

    Even as Drs. Willie and Ana Liza devote a great deal of time and resources on educating and inspiring doctors, they are also among the handful of Filipinos who have taken upon themselves the mission of chronicling the history of medicine in the country. This quest took them to the United States a few years ago in search of historical archives on the health care institutions and practices in the Philippines during the American period.

    The fruits of these efforts are manifest in the their forthcoming publication and in the materials and visual aids exhibited in the medical museum they recently established at their office along Taft Avenue in Pasay City. Treasures on display at the museum include old medical stamps, coins, books, and other historical artifacts. To date, they have completed their research on the American period from 1898 to 1940. They are presently doing research on the Spanish period, which has been difficult because documents and accounts are written in Spanish.

    Though it may seem at first to be an esoteric endeavor, the medical museum is meant to help students, doctors, and allied health professionals understand the present through the study of history. Dr. Willie said there are many lessons to be learned in studying medical history. He cited the cholera epidemic of 1902, said to be the worst epidemic in Philippine history. Two hundred thousand persons died in the epidemic; and the Americans sought to control it by burning the houses of those affected with the disease, which was the protocol at the time prior to oral rehydration and modern sanitation procedures.

Crusade for the Poor

    Most medical practitioners are asked at one time or another to help out in medical mission for the less fortunate. Drs. Willie and Ana Liza, however, need not be invited to go on such missions because their daily practice consists of nothing but charity work for indigent patients. Together with some colleagues, they render free medical services regularly at a fire station in Pasay City, and go on other itinerant missions organized by various communities.

    Dr. Willie also sees his cardiology patients at the Manila Doctors Hospital for free. This writer learned that none of the professional services performed by either of the two doctors is done for money. What little they can earn from their supposed nonprofit publications is ploughed back into supplying medicines for some of their patients with chronic ailments that require costly drugs over extended periods of time.

    Mindful not to merely replicate Department of Health and local health unit services, the couple prefer to focus the work of their medical missions on hypertension, asthma, diabetes, and other diseases not amply attended to by the government and other community organizations.

    Not long ago, the call to service for Dr. Willie was further tested with the plea of Sister Eva Maamo (MEDICAL OBSERVER, October, 1997) for him to organize the Department of Medicine for a new charity hospital, referred to by its proponents as the "Hospital for the Poor." He was initially reluctant to accept the responsibility, and asked Sister Eva to get someone more senior and more influential. However, he found himself unable to turn down the request of the Catholic nun/surgeon whose spirit and charisma, he commented, is that of the late Mother Teresa of Calcutta. She is, in fact, widely regarded as "The Mother Teresa of the Philippines."

    Along Coastal Road, very near the tollgates, stands a new structure with the name "Our Lady of Peace." This will soon be inaugurated as a 100-bed hospital with all services free of charge. While some of its organizers are considering a socialized payment program in which fees paid by financially-able patients would support the free services offered to the economically disadvantaged, Dr. Willie feels it would be best to maintain the facility as a 100 percent charity hospital, supported wholly by donations from outside sources and benefactors.

    Dr. Willie said former President Corazon C. Aquino authorized the donation of the land while former President Fidel V. Ramos had the structure built. Former President Joseph Estrada committed one million pesos a month for the hospital; and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo extended this grant from four to eight years. The Alfonso Yuchengco Foundation donated PhP50 million.

    To enable the proponents of the Hospital for the Poor to sustain 100-percent charity operation, Dr. Willie needs to recruit physicians who are willing to provide free professional services. He stressed that by making the hospital all charity, they would be delivering a strong statement.

A Servant-Doctor

    What motivates a physician like Dr. Willie to dedicate his life and medical practice to uplifting both the young health care practitioners and the poor Filipino patients?

    "A rich person can always seek treatment from any doctor," he pointed out, "but the poor have nowhere to go."

    He does not harbor any illusions of seeing every single Filipino physician do as he has done. It certainly helps to be the son of noted Filipino-Chinese philanthropist Ong Yong, who has unquestioningly supported Dr. Willie's worthy crusade, along with many other civic projects. Drs. Willie and Ana Liza hope, however, that their efforts may somehow arouse the propensity towards serving humankind that is resident in every doctor.

    Firmly rooted in his faith, Dr. Willie believes that his mission, with all its demands, is God's will for him. Perhaps his words in the Preface to the third edition of the Bluebook best describes the spirit and drive with which he takes on gargantuan tasks: "I can accomplish nothing without Him. But I can do everything in Christ who strengthens me."