THIRTY-FOUR graduates of the practice-based residency training program of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) will be assigned to serve in Capitol-run hospitals in Balamban town and the cities of Bogo, Carcar and Danao.
They specialize in obstetrics and gynecology, family medicine, general surgery, and pediatrics.
“They are graduates of the four major services needed in our provincial hospitals. They can now help our provincial hospitals in their cases,” said Dr. Gerardo Aquino, chief of the VSMMC, who accompanied the doctors in a courtesy call on Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia at the Cebu Provincial Capitol on Tuesday, June 1, 2021.
Garcia said the post-residency deployment is a “groundbreaking” program in the way it shows how the local government and the national government can help each other.
VSMMC is a general tertiary medical center with a medical training facility, which is owned by the national government and funded and run by the Department of Health (DOH).
In October 2019, the Cebu Provincial Government, DOH-Central Visayas Center for Health Development (CVCHD), and VSMMC signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) to conduct a practice-based residency training program.
Under the MOA, VSMMC will train the general practitioners from Cebu provincial hospitals to become certified primary care and family physicians to be able to attend to the four major initial care areas: pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, surgery, and family medicine.
DOH-CVCHD provided funds for the program.
Garcia said this initiative eases the load of patients from the province who are being transferred to the VSMMC.
“Even if the patients can be treated, they are still sent to VSMMC. If we can attend to our patients properly right at our district and provincial hospitals, no need na nga himuong murag terminal ang VSMMC (there is no need to turn VSMMC like a terminal),” she said.
Aquino said that apart from usual salaries, the doctors will also receive incentives like allowances while serving at the provincial hospitals. (NRC with ANV)