Bottled ※ Brain

I'm happy to announce that our study has been published in the Journal of Global Oncology. You can read the abstract here . We presented this paper in the inaugural American Society of Clinical Oncology Breakthrough Summit in Bangkok, Thailand last October 2019. Many thanks to Mervyn and Berbi who worked with me on this.

On my father's supposed 68th birthday, I find myself wishing he were here to congratulate me on my first prize wins for oncology research, or to tell me that I'm losing weight and should eat some more, or to listen to his hearty laughter that my brother and I remember him for. I miss you every day, Tay, and I look forward to the day when we meet again.

Just when the day starts to overwhelm me, I am reminded by the fact that the Lord is in control, sovereign in all things. There is no cause or need for worry because if the birds of the air do not, why should I, whom the Father loves? Each morning for the past weeks I've been playing Keith and Kristyn Getty's What Grace is Mine . What grace is mine that He who dwells in endless light Called through the night to find my distant soul And from his scars poured mercy that would plead for me That I might live and in his name be known So I will go wherever He is calling me I lose my life to find my life in Him I give my all to gain the hope that never dies I bow my heart, take up my cross and follow Him What grace is mine to know His breath alive in me Beneath his wings my wakened soul may soar All fear can flee for death’s dark night is overcome My Saviour lives and reigns forevermore So I will go wherever He is calling me I lose my life to find my life in Him

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via Instagram

Spot on, Kay Rivera, my med school batch mate and favorite Inquirer columnist ! How long has it been since we took the UPCAT? How time flies. She ends her piece with this. Clearly, UP is not homogeneous. It takes all kinds to make a university. For those who have made it past this weekend’s hurdle, my limited, unsolicited advice is simple: don’t romanticize the university, lest one be prone to complacency; don’t rest on your laurels or belittle the achievements of other universities; don’t buy into the thinking that it’s UP or nothing; and realize that what makes UP, even more than its staff and its professors, are the mettle, passion and moral compass of its students. The expectation shouldn’t be that UP ought to make or break you, but that your actions and choices can make or break a university which is held to a certain standard of freedom of expression, justice-seeking and political awareness. UP is only as good as the students it produces, and to respond to the needs of an ailin

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To keep her busy, I've asked Mother to take pictures of her every day. This is a year-long project. I installed the Flickr app on her phone and configured it so that all photos are automatically uploaded to a private cloud. Because of this, I know that she has gone walking, or has met with high school classmates, or has attended yet another funeral—events she can't seem to get too much of, as she wants to encourage the grieving families with God's comfort, as she has been comforted when we lost my father. She went on tour with our church family from Marbel Evangelical Fellowship to visit Aliwagwag Falls in Compostela Valley-Davao Oriental. Here's Mother, with Auntie Cecil, her forever best friend who sticks closer to her than a sister (they've shared the same dental clinic for years, until her retirement) and practically a second mother to us. Nanay takes good pictures, doesn't she? I tell her to take photos of clouds, flowers, moving things, and

Over breakfast coffee, I talked to my colleagues and friends, Berbi and Marvin, about generation gaps in medicine, sentiments about fellowship training, funny experiences in the clinics, and life in general. I love these conversations. I liken them to well-written systematic reviews because they clarify the meaning of certain life events that have happened during the past week or month, amplify the important lessons in those time periods, and offer future directions. We talked about our desire to live simple, quiet lives—doing God's work in our little corner of the world. "And maybe that's not such a bad thing," we concluded. Some people are destined to change the world and rally others to do the same. Others are called to carry on the good work quietly: a doctor in his clinic, a mechanic in his shop, a student in his class. It is a meaningful life. And then I came across a beautiful tribute to a man who worked with medical missionaries in Bundibugyo . I don

via Instagram Dr. Kenn Samala gave me a print out of a photo he took from the New York Central Park a few months ago. Printed photos are a different thing entirely.