INTRODUCTION TO AUGUSTO PEREZ SARMIENTO, MD, FACS, FPCS

To be delivered April 25, 2012 at the Commencement Exercises of the College of Medicine, De La Salle Health Sciences Institute

I have been presented the daunting task of introducing our commencement speaker for this afternoon’s graduation. I am overwhelmed, yet privileged and honored, to say the least. How can one begin to describe a master surgeon, pioneering healthcare entrepreneur, competitive sportsman, loving family man and a consummate practitioner of the art and science of healing?

He graduated from the University of the Philippines in 1948, just as the nation, newly independent, was healing from the wounds of world war. Under the tutelage of the great Januario Estrada Sr., he received his surgical training at the Philippine General Hospital.

In 1954 an opportunity came to train as one of the first Filipino surgical residents at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the Valhalla of Cancer Surgery in New York City. He stayed for four years, completing his training under the American surgeon widely regarded as the Father of Head and Neck Surgery, Dr. Hayes Martin.

He became a member of the American College of Surgeons, the James Ewing Society, and the American Society of Head and Neck Surgeons, as well as the American Society of Surgical Oncology. He worked for a time as an associate of Dr. Martin, but decided to forgo the glitzy lights and prestige of a Park Avenue Manhattan surgical practice, returning to Manila in 1958.

He taught and practiced general and cancer surgery at the PGH and at the newly inaugurated University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center, and practiced privately at the Manila Doctors Hospital with the group of Dr. Ambrosio F. Tangco.

In 1967 he moved his practice along with several overseas trained UP doctors to join the esteemed Agerico B. M. Sison in a diminutive hospital near Highway 54 among talahib and carabao tended flatlands owned by the Ortigas family. It was named the ABM Sison Hospital, in honor of their mentor.

By 1969 our guest speaker, along with the other like-minded young associates of Dr. Sison found the financial situation of their 2 year old hospital in dire straits. In a bold stroke, this intrepid group of physicians, along with visionary financiers from the banking community had the Sison family agree to these young doctors’ assumption of fiscal and management responsibility for the ABM Sison Hospital. These young MDs named their group Professional Services, Inc., and renamed the facility The Medical City General Hospital.

Today The Medical City, which moved to its new Ortigas Avenue location in 2004, is celebrating its 45th year of operation, and is regarded as one of, if not the best, majority physician owned tertiary health care institution in the Philippines, led by the bold, pioneering vision of its leader, our speaker for this afternoon, who serves as Chairman of the Board to this day. In the present environment of businessmen and financial corporation-led hospital takeovers, the Medical City stands out as a medical center that is still majority owned, and run by, its practicing physicians.

My memories of our guest speaker are rich indeed. I first met him as I interviewed for the surgical residency program at the Medical City a quarter of a century ago. My impression of him was akin to that of a moviegoer encountering a matinee movie idol in the flesh: he looked 20 years younger than his 64 years, wearing movie star shades inside the auditorium where interviews were taking place. Did it matter? Not one bit-everyone knew who he was: former President of the Philippine College of Surgeons, Board Examiner of the Philippine Board of Surgery, Chairman of the Department of Surgery at the Lady of Lourdes Hospital, and, at that time, President and Medical Director of the Medical City.

I had made a leap of faith in choosing a private hospital for surgical training, as I had come from a closed world where UP taught you that outside of PGH, surgical training was shoddy and inferior. I had yet to know, as it was slowly revealed to me, that great surgical training meant watching, then assisting, then operating with the best surgeons as they manage the three elements of surgical education: first, imparting current knowledge with the end of correct decision making and good clinical outcomes; second, imparting sound surgical skill by watching the best surgical hands at work, assisting them next, then operating on cases under their watchful eye; and third, imparting excellent surgical attitude by observing, then emulating the best of their mental dispositions especially under pressure, as well as observing, then absorbing the best of their bedside manner.

I knew at the outset I did not want to derive my knowledge, skills and attitude by learning just from senior residents---I wanted to learn my surgery by distilling the best of knowledge, skills and attitudes from the most skilled, loved and successful practicing surgeons of the time.

Our speaker for this afternoon certainly made my training in Medical City worthwhile. I was witness to how a surgical field could be dissected out such that the anatomy was laid out as if it was from an Atlas drawing from Netter’s Anatomy; I was witness to how surgical planes would suddenly open up and be revealed out of nowhere, leading to swift dissection and exposure, about how we observed that blood vessels would literally flee from the dissecting Mayo scissors of our speaker, creating a spectacularly bloodless field.

We felt and appreciated the knowledge he filtered down to us; the nuances of surgical history, of the logic behind surgical decision-making, and how it compelled us as juniors, and especially so as senior residents to bone up on our surgical theory, lest we be left out of his cases. You needed to know the latest current detail of the patient, as that was expected of you, so you mastered pre, intra, and post op surgical management the right and real world way – with paying patients who expected the best care.

Most importantly you learned and emulated the most excellent bedside manner any physician would gift his patients, rich or poor. You would bear witness to how a vacillating patient, wracked with fear, anxiety and doubt about their impending surgery would finally be convinced to submit to our speaker’s knife after he would masterfully present the patient’s current medical situation and how our speaker’s surgical intervention, though invasive and risky, could benefit the patient overall. We saw how patient’s eyes would light up as he entered the patient’s room, and shine all the more brightly as he left it. We saw how the unconvinced would, a few minutes later, be left literally begging to be operated on by this man. Such was, and still is, his magic, his effect on people. This person convinces me all the more that Medicine is the art of healing the mind of the patient, first and foremost. The skill to repair the body complements, but does not supersede, the quality of the physician-patient relationship, the extent to how the physician gives heart to his art.

At 88 years of age, he was, and still is, the inspiration to 3 generations of Filipino surgeons. I am forever grateful to the Almighty to have experienced him, and to De La Salle, for the honor of introducing him.

Ladies and gentlemen, fellow La Sallians, fellow students of the art and science of surgery and medicine, our Guest Speaker, Chairman of the Board of Professional Services, Inc., Dr. Augusto P. Sarmiento.