A New Beginning

It is the first quarter of our second year of administration. Following tradition, we look back during this time, analyze what we have achieved during the past year and plan for the months ahead of us.

For the first quarter, we plan to organize the PDS group to be composed of the young PDS members who are within the first two years of their membership in PDS. The chair of the PDS committee on Human Resources & Development, Francisco Rivera IV, MD, has conducted a survey last November 2007 and is planning to have a meeting of the possible members of the PDS group. All the qualified PDS members should coordinate with him for the group's activities which will be conducted soon. Once organized, seminars can be done to tackle special topics like leadership, team building or how to start a practice. The main goal is to help the new members start their practice as well as prepare them for their future role in the PDS.

The Chair of the Public Relations & External Affairs, Loverna A. Suratos, MD, is finding ways to make the public aware that the PDS is the authority on skin, hair & nail health. We hope to have the trimedia mileage despite our limited budget. Hopefully, we would have finalized a program of activities by middle of this year.

Marilu Aquino, MD, PDS treasurer, Arnold Yu, MD, Chair of the PDS Committee on Legal Affairs, joined me last January 21, 2008, as we participated in the press conference called by the Philippine Medial Association (PMA) to make the public aware regarding the possible danger to patients' safety if the Congress version of the Cheaper Medicine Bill is approved. We agree with the position and idea of the Philippine College of Physicians and have contributed to the newspaper publication of our stand regarding the bill. Whereas, we support the Generic law and the idea of provision of cheaper medicines for our patients, we do not agree with the provision in the Congress' version where it is stated that doctors can only prescribe the generic name of medicines and the prescription should not contain the brand name. If this provision is approved, the choice of the drugs to be taken by the patients will then lie in the hands of the sales clerks in the drugstores. This is where the safety of the patients become endangered. The doctor will not be able to prescribe his chosen drugs which he thinks will be effective for his patients based on his theoretical knowledge and experience. We continue to lobby with friends and relatives of PDS members who are in the Congress and Senate. As of this writing, there is a great possibility that the “generics only” provision of this bill be abolished during the bicameral session of the Congress and Senate.

Last January 23, 2008, the PDS research committee, headed by Ma. Jasmin J. Jamora. MD, organized the forum on “Evidence-based Medicine for Dermatologists: A Guided Tour”, with Nemencio A. Nicodemus, MD, as the main speaker. It was an opportunity, not only for the residents but also for the consultants, to understand how to appraise the different literatures and determine their significance or importance based on the evidence contained in the article. Dr. Nicodemus certainly made a complicated subject matter easy to understand. Following tradition, the introduction of the Chairs, Residency Training Officers and new first year residents of the ten (10) PDS-accredited training institutions, was also done.

On February 12 – 14, the PDS will participate in the Banaue Medical Outreach which was initiated by PDS honorary member, Ida Tiongson, MD. The PDS members who will be joining the group are Drs. Georgina Pastorfide, Alex Castillo, Karen Alabado, Johannes Dayrit, Arcee Grey and Remedios Manuel. We thank our members for their unselfish support for this activity.

I encourage all of you to attend the PDS monthly CME activities, not only to fulfill a requirement to maintain “membership of good standing” but more importantly, to be updated with our dermatologic knowledge and skills. The PDS CME committee headed by Blossom Chan, MD, have looked for more appropriate venue and have decided to hold the meetings at Wack-Wack clubhouse. Please see the schedule of the upcoming meetings included in this newsletter. We will also encourage the host institutions to mail the program to the PDS members within Metro Manila, aside from the emails and text messages that the secretariat does.

The Board has reviewed the evaluation and comments from the participants of the Annual Convention. Based on these, we are continuously trying to improve our convention. The 2008 Annual Convention will be held in cooperation with the International Society of Dermatology (ISD), with Evangeline Handog , MD , as our link to the ISD. We will also have a new home at SMX Convention Center in the Mall of Asia Complex. The venue is huge so we will not have exclusivity of the area, but the facility is certainly world class and more affordable for our Society. After long discussion with some of the Chairs of the Convention Organizing Committee, we have decided to finally transfer to the SMX Convention Center . I hope that we will enjoy this new venue even if we, definitely, cannot have all the convenience we expect.

More or less, these are what we will be busy with for the coming months. I believe that we began the year right. I will definitely keep all of you posted of new developments for 2008.

Arnelfa C. Paliza, MD, FPDS
President