THE Southern Philippines Medical Center Department of Emergency Medicine (SPMC-DEM) launched the country’s first Diving, Hyperbaric, and Wound Care Fellowship last June 11, 2020, and also announced the acquisition of a 12-man hyperbaric chamber, which is expected to arrive at around the third quarter of the year.
The 12-man hyperbaric chamber to replace the existing two-man chamber that is housed at the Hyperbaric Chamber House of SPMC-EMed.
SPMC-EMed chief Dr. Benedict Edward P. Valdez said the launching of the fellowship and the upgrade of the present hyperbaric facility at SPMC is in line with the hospital’s vision to become the Apex Hospital in Mindanao.
“The vision of Emergency Medicine is not just about caring for sick people at the Emergency Department but it is to educate, empower, and train people and physicians forthcoming in this institution,” Dr. Valdez said.
He added that they intend to launch two more fellowship training programs in trauma and point-of-care ultrasound.
The SPMC-EMed was launched in 2016, thus, it takes pride in being able to launch a fellowship training program in just four years. Just a year after SPMC-DEM was launched, it was already accredited by the Philippine College of Emergency Medicine as a training program to train competent EMS personnel and promote training and education in collaboration with the Davao Central 911–Emergency Medical Services. SPMC-DEM has partnered with Malaysia and India for critical care sonology, trauma medicine, and prehospital care all geared to enhance emergency medical services and training programs for first-responders in Mindanao.
Now, it is moving into fellowship training programs.
Its first fellow is Dr. Arthur R. Salvador, who has been working closely with Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Head Dr. Jeffrey Ramos for the past six months.
Dr. Ramos said the 12-man chamber would have been already set up by this time had not the Covid-19 pandemic cause major disruptions in workflow and schedules.
Newly-appointed Health Undersecretary Leopoldo J. Vega, who has headed the SPMC and caused major improvements since 2009, recalled that it was when he was the medical director of the Davao Medical School Foundation (DMSF) when he was introduced to hyperbaric medicine through an offer of erstwhile DMSF senior consultant on cardiothoracic surgery Dr. Florante B. Lomibao to set up a hyperbaric facility there.
DMSF thus got a hyperbaric chamber at that time, “but the market wasn’t there”, Dr. Vega said during the fellowship launching where he was the guest speaker.
“But, the most important thing there is I saw the importance of hyperbaric, I saw the potentials with Dr. Jeff,” Dr. Vega said. This was further reinforced when Dr. Ramos and himself went to Texas in 2008 to study hyperbaric medicine and saw that it is not just for emergency diving accidents but for deep wound care and carbon monoxide poisoning.
It took some time and the assumption of President Rodrigo R. Duterte to finally set up a unit at SPMC through the Department of Tourism and the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority.
“The biggest breakthrough now since we have the infra, the people running it from EMed to Dr. Jeff, we move forward towards a higher calling and that’s training and fellowship,” Vega said.
“If you are able to improve human resources, you start it right, I know this is something big, there will be no stopping where you are going.”