IN THIS SERIES OF BLOG POSTINGS, WE FEATURE OUR ALUMNI AS THEY TALK ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCE BEING IN THE PROGRAM AS WELL AS THEIR UNFORGETTABLE MOMENTS AS FORMER XU DEVCOM STUDENTS.

Why did you choose XU DevCom?

It wasn’t my first choice. My parents wanted me to enroll into a course with good career prospects (which is why I enrolled into engineering), while I wanted to get into fine arts (I wanted to study sculpture back then). I shifted to DevCom during my second year of college, when it became clear that I — and my engineering professors — saw that mathematics and I could never get to the next level, but may still remain good friends.

Tell us about your experience with the program

Twenty years have passed, and I still hold on to fond memories of how to develop film and print out photos, produce a community puppet show, draft communication strategies, learn how to be effective communicators. Back then, we still had the Aggie bus to convey us to Manresa farm, which really fostered the Aggie spirit back then. Together with our fellow Aggies of the College of Agriculture, I learned how to milk a cow, prepare a garden, sit down with community leaders and talk about their problems.

We made a school-on-the-air program on sustainable agriculture and ran it for a semester, and learned that my conversational Cebuano was not suited for a formal radio education program. This was when I gained a deeper appreciation for the language and even bought Fr. Cabonce’s Cebuano dictionary.

Our class (we still call ourselves the DevCom 24K) grew close during our college days, reveling in the awakening of our skills and talents and learning how to apply these to help solve community issues.

What is your current job

Ophthalmologist, St. Benedict Hospital, Matanao, Davao del Sur

Ophthalmologist, Davao Eye MDs Laser and Surgery Center, Obrero, Davao City

Medical Officer, Department of Ophthalmology, Southern Philippines Medical Center, Davao City

Lecturer (Ophthalmology), Davao Medical School Foundation, Medical School Drive, Davao City

Are you using what you learned in college

I majored in Journalism, and also completed the Educational Communication subjects. After graduation, I started as a project documentation clerk for an NGO, then as a Development Communication Associate for another NGO’s eco-development tourism program in Camiguin. This led to a stint as a Social Marketing consultant for the Department of Health-Region X. There, while photographing a project site, I saw a patient with filariasis, which aroused sympathy and, at the same time, a number of “why” and “what if” questions. This particular job experience sparked my interest in health care and led to my decision to apply for medical school and become a doctor.

I still use communication principles to help my patients understand their disease and treatment. My patients appreciate that I try to simplify the concepts, and I find that it helps in treatment compliance.

I still utilize AV communication principles whenever I conduct lectures to medical students. I still rely on principles that I have learned in college to keep everything simple as I can, especially when teaching our foreign students.

A few years back, as an ophthalmology resident representing my department for the inter-hospital case presentation contest, I won 2^nd place and was also awarded as the best presenter for the year. I’ve also helped fellow residents with their poster presentations, for which our Department has won 1st place a number of times. I’ve also applied my journalistic skills as an article editor for our hospital journal (Southern Philippines Medical Center Journal of Health Services, a peer-reviewed scientific journal that is also published internationally online), and as the primary author for a research paper that was also selected for publication.

Would you recommend studying DevCom

I feel that my college experience prepared me to always be curious, to remain open to possibilities. We graduated with an awareness of problems affecting our communities and were trained to approach things from a development perspective. I used my skill as a writer to tell stories so that other communities and organizations might try the same things for their people.

As a pre-medical course, I would recommend a course other than DevCom, one that emphasizes health-related subjects, science, and mathematics. I had a difficult time adjusting during my first year in medicine, despite having taken 1 year’s worth of Biology subjects prior to enrolling in medical school.

But, could a DevComm graduate become a physician? Definitely, especially if you take to heart the message of Fr. William Masterson’s favorite song, “The Impossible Dream”. For a committed DevCom graduate with a vision, anything’s possible!