DAVAO City is now host to the first-ever Fellowship Training in Trauma and Critical Care in the Visayas and Mindanao with its launching at the Southern Philippines Medical Center Department of Surgery.
SPMC thus becomes one of only three hospitals in the Philippines that offers this fellowship. The other two are Jose B. Lingad Memorial Regional Hospital in San Fernando, Pampanga, and the consortium of Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center and Quirino Memorial Medical Center in Metro Manila.
By August 2022, Dr. Benedict Edward P. Valdez said, they will be launching the Trauma Physician Fellowship, again under the Emergency Medicine Department with Drs. Johnny Perez and Faith Joan M. Gaerlan of St. Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City.
“With this fellowship, Trauma Care in Davao City will be complete,” Dr. Valdez said as it will have the Trauma and Critical Care Fellowship Training under the Department of Surgery Division of Trauma and Critical Care, and the Hyperbaric, Diving, and Difficult Wound Institute Fellowship and the Trauma Physician Fellowship Training under the Department of Emergency Medicine.
“Trauma is top 5 in cause of mortality and morbidity in the population,” Dr. Valdez said in underlining the advantage of having a complete trauma care in the region. “A good trauma system from prehospital care to hospital management, ICU (intensive) care and rehabilitation will decrease mortality.”
“It’s the system that saves lives,” he added.
Trauma care covers patients who figured in vehicular accidents, gunshot wounds, falls, and other bodily injuries severe enough to cause disability or death.
Covid restrictions in the past two years have notably reduced transport accidents, but the numbers are still worthy of interest.
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) “registered deaths attributed to transport accidents decreased by 37.4 percent, from 12.8 thousand (2.1 percent share) in 2019 to 8.0 thousand (1.4 percent share) in 2020, pushing its rank from 11th to 17th.
Similarly, deaths due to assault decreased by 32.0 percent in 2020 (from 8.8 thousand in 2019 to 6.0 thousand in 2020), moving down its rank from 16th to 20th.”
Meanwhile, vehicle collisions are a daily occurrence.
In 2003, Dr. Benedict Edward P. Valdez, founding chair of the Emergency Medicine and Trauma and Critical Care at SPMC, was among the pioneers in the training of 911 Davao EMS Pre-Hospital Care and in 2015, the first emergency medicine training program in Mindanao was launched in SPMC with is Diving, Difficult Wounds and Hyperbaric Medicine as Sub-Specialization.
Dr. Valdez sits as a member of the board of directors of the Philippine Society for the Surgery of Trauma headed by its president Dr. Andrew Jay G. Pusung.
Other officers of the PSST are Esther A. Saguil, MD, Vice President; Aireen Patricia Madrid, MD, Secretary; Maria Lourdes C. Gutierrez, MD, Treasurer; and the rest of the Board Directors - Alfred Allen Buenafe, MD, Maria Benita Gatmaitan, MD, Halima Mokamad-Romancap, MD, and Ronnie Torres, MD.