Dr. Alvin B. Marcelo
Telemedicine Trailblazer
Doing a work on telemedicine is a dream-come-true for someone like Dr. Alvin B. Marcelo who wished, first of all, to become a computer science whiz.
But due to a rare opportunity, he fell into the better lot of taking up Medicine under the shortened seven-year Intarmed program of the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH).
The Intarmed is an elite program for Medicine students who pass rigorous entrance tests.
“My first choice was really Computer Science. But I got accepted in the Intarmed where few people get accepted. You’re a fool if you don’t enroll in it.”
Having completed a surgeon’s residency, he worked as a surgeon at PGH. But never forgot his dream at all.
A post-doctoral fellowship at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland paved the way to realizing a practice in medical informatics where computer mixes with medicine.
That became a milestone, not only for Alvin himself, but for Philippine health and medicine.
“I have already reduced surgery work. Definitely (I enjoy this more). I’m just one of the thousand surgeons. In e-health and telemedicine, I’m the pioneer. Of course it’s enjoyable to conduct an operation. It’s very dramatic. But in surgery, you do it one at a time. In telemedicine, you’re able to amplify yourself to more people.
“The impact is less dramatic than surgery. But the footprint is larger. Surgeons could probably operate two, three, five cases a day. We can see 20 cases in one day (in telemedicine). We can get to 100 to thousands per day if we open it to the public.”
He is an advocate of free/open source software (FOSS) which he believes is a way to democratize use of technology.
“I have been promoting FOSS since I started dabbling with Linux in 1994. I had found the freedom offered by FOSS as exactly the liberation that we would wish to endow every citizen of this planet.”
As National Telehealth Center director of UP-PGH, Alvin gets to touch base with many technology professionals.
“There are a lot of people contacting me. Many of them there have devices already. I try to meet with them to see if the device is applicable.”
Some personal notes:
Birthday: April 14, 1966
Civil Status: “Happily married with Portia,” as his website says, with three
children, Athena, 11; Andres, 10; and Althea, 8.
Inspiring book: Heroic Leadership by Chris Lowney. I’ts very inspiring.
Leisure / Time with my kids: Guitar. I’m now teaching them how to play guitar.
Outing to Tagaytay, Clark. My children are not very demanding.
Alvin’s motto “Magtaya, magpalaya, magmahal,” as indicated in his website,
tells about risking, losing, and trying to do something about it.
As failing is very common in Information Technology, government should
come in to make things work. It is the instrument through which the unheard of
are cared for.
“Government should be extending services to the underserved, more than to those well-off. But what happens is those who have the money get the services first. Those that have the ability are the ones given the opportunity. Those who don’t have a voice can’t find any help anywhere. They’re voiceless, uneducated. That’s why they will never get to that level where they would ask for their rights.”
Alvin grew up, spending grade school and high school, in a supposedly school for the rich, Ateneo de Manila. He admits to benefiting from the privilege of learning about service for the underprivileged in two institutions.
“It’s a good combination. Ateneo gives you the principle, but you don’t understand it. UP shows you where you actually apply the principle.”
And when it was time to make a hard decision, he chose what could have required a sacrifice for what he felt would benefit more of his countrymen. He was already helping to start out Ateneo’s medical school which is in a tie-up with Medical City when he had to make this choice.
“I chose UP. This is not about compensation. It’s about a principle. Telemedicine has the opportunity to solve needs of very poor people. And the government is in the position, not the type of government we have, but the abstract government which is the organization of the people called government, which should be addressing the problems of the disadvantaged people.
“Private sector will never do it, unless there’s money behind it, if it’s going to put it in the black. Government thinks otherwise. If any of my citizen is in the red, I have to come up with a system and with solutions to get it into the black. But you couldn’t really care whether its profiting or not.”
No comments:
Post a Comment