A devoted allergy expert
DR. MARIA Carmela Agustin-Kasala, a pediatrician and allergy specialist at The Medical City in Pasig City, has accomplished a lot. But for her, being able to help other people and sharing with the younger generation her knowledge in the medical field are what she is most happy about.
To be a doctor was really Dr. Kasala’s childhood dream at a very early age. A product of many academic institutions, she finds this as an advantage for networking and knowing various organizational and business model systems. She acquired her Bachelor of Science in Biology degree at the University of the Philippines Diliman and her Doctor of Medicine at the University of the East — Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center (UERMMMC).
She then went on to Veterans Memorial Medical Center for her post-graduate internship and then took the Physician Licensure Examinations, the first of many board certification examinations doctors have to take.
What followed next was a career move towards specialty training in Pediatrics at The Medical City, capped with a second board examination for certification by the Philippine Pediatric Society. Having decided to further train in the subspecialty field of Allergy, she found herself back at the University of the Philippines system at the Philippine General Hospital followed by a short clinical fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco Ambulatory Clinics.
After hurdling a third board certification by the Philippine Society of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, she settled back at The Medical City as the lone allergist in the hospital’s regular consultant roster.
“So, it was really left on my shoulders to have all the allergy cases here in the hospital until the younger allergists came five to 10 years after,” Dr. Kasala told
BusinessWorld in an interview. Aside from attending to patients at her clinic, she also conducts lectures around the country and abroad, and holds clinical preceptorship small group discussions at the UERM College of Medicine. Meeting students and teaching them about pediatrics and allergy is one of Dr. Kasala’s ways of giving back to the medical institution that molded her and sharing her knowledge and expertise to the next generation of medical professionals.
She said that going into both pediatrics and allergy was a good choice as she was able to balance her time for family, work and socio-civic activities.
Dr. Kasala is the current president of the Philippine Society of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, Inc. (PSAAI), an organization of board certified allergists and immunologists established in 1972. Since 2015, she has been in charge of PSAAI’s operations and has worked dedicatedly on achieving the group’s primary objective — to educate the society and raise awareness on different allergic and immunologic conditions.
She shared that many people ignore allergy, not realizing that severe allergic conditions can actually be life-threatening. A person suffers from allergy when the immune system reacts to defend the bodies from certain things encountered that are perceived as foreign.
She explained that allergens are substances that cause these allergic reactions, including house dust mite, grass pollen, animal dander, food and medications.
According to her, allergy does not just occur on the skin but may also occur in the nose or lungs so each patient should be checked as a whole. She said that there is really no cure for allergies but it can be controlled once the allergens are identified and eliminated.
The cornerstones of allergy management, according to Dr. Kasala, are: environmental manipulation; pharmacotherapy; immunotherapy or allergy shots; and patient education.
Dr. Kasala sees her profession as a way to help people. “I like being with my patients, hearing them talk, listening to their worries and trying to find ways to ease their situation,” she said. “I see medicine and being a doctor as a way to help people, bearing in mind of course, that we doctors are mere instruments of God. Ultimately, it is God who heals us all.”
She shared that many people ignore allergy, not realizing that severe allergic conditions can actually be life-threatening. A person suffers from allergy when the immune system reacts to defend the bodies from certain things encountered that are perceived as foreign.