I was watching this Filipino news show with my mom and they were talking about medical tourism, specifically in Thailand. I've known about Filipino's going back to the Philippines to get plastic surgery and what not, but I never imagined American's and Europeans going on a "medical vacation." The news segment also showed what kind of rooms patients stay in after surgery and I've never even stayed at hotels that were this nice! I was also surprised to learn that people don't just travel for plastic surgery, they travel to get other surgeries such as open heart.

The reason I blog about this is because the Philippines is trying to get in on this industry, but they want it to be on a Thailand scale. At first I thought that this would be good for the country. Doctors would be motivated to stay in the Philippines instead of going to the US. (see my blog about this doctor drain) Good for all right? Wrong! Yeah, the doctors will stay and practice in the Philippines, but for TOURISTS. What about all the medically underserved in the rural areas? That's where most care is needed, but if this whole medical tourism thing blows up in the Philippines, every doctor graduating in the country will be pulled towards these hospital/hotels leaving the poor worse off than they were originally.

Hopefully next year I'll get to go on a medical mission to the Philippines in my moms province. I'm really looking forward to it.

MATCH DAY

This will be a quick one because it's been a long day, but:

I matched at....POMONA VALLEY HOSPITAL MEDICAL CENTER in Family Medicine!

Congratulations to all my friends. I'm so proud of you all! And remember....we all end up where we are supposed to. Divide and conquer!!

"Did I Match" DAY : YES I DID!!

Today we found out IF we matched, hence the title. The important thing about today is that I know I'll be going somewhere I chose. If I didn't match then I'd have to scramble, which means I would have to find programs that didn't fill their spots and try to get into one of those spots. The unfilled programs can be located anywhere, so it's not something I anyone wants to do. Anyhow, so MATCH DAY is on Thursday. My friends and I are going to find out where we match together; thank God for wireless! Blog about that to come...

This is a cheap blog only because while trying to find pictures for the blog, I found an entry that said everything I wanted to say. I was watching TLC's "My Unique Family" this evening and Bree Walker and family were being featured. What makes them unique is they have Ectrodactyly. I remembered her from when I lived in San Diego, where she was a newscaster.

So...here's the link. I just thought it was really interesting, and I totally agree with what the author has to say.

Bree Walker

You know you've had too much plastic surgery when Wikipedia says so....

"In recent years, it has been observed that Walker seems to have undergone visible facial plastic surgery; her lips especially, appear to have been injected with collagen. It is estimated five quarts of collagen have been used."