Doctor subscriber
For, needless to say, Dr. Edwin Wenceslao is at the frontlines, too, the stories resonating closer and closer to home as he reckons with his own heroic narratives for the professional battles he won, and lost
Time was when people would, as a matter of habit, sit at the breakfast table, fancying a lovely cup of coffee and a newspaper to go with it, frowning with the kind of concentration that can bend spoons. That’s how they did it then. That’s how Dr. Edwin Wenceslao does it now.
Opting to pay for his news in an age when he can read it for free online, Dr. Wenceslao may not be vocal about expressing that print is not dying, but he values what he pays for: journalism.
Nowhere can the reporting be more substantial and informed, and aggregate content more effectively, especially when the marching orders in most online newsrooms is to deliver stories fast and far, but in mere soundbites and poorly drawn headlines.
Wenceslao is a loyal subscriber of Daily Tribune, the sole newspaper of his choice for the last three years (since the broadsheet has undergone profound and cosmetic changes), ever-expanding readership base, a discerning set of both aging and dewy demographics.
He is specific about the paper’s Opinion and Sports pages, as well as Dr. Brian Cabral’s sardonic autobiographies, and, more recently, when COVID-19 began hitting headlines, a doctor’s ramblings — and mourning — folded into love notes sent from the frontlines, acknowledging that the stories that connect are the ones that are relatable.
A personal crusade
Wenceslao, a cardiologist and internist at Makati Medical Center (MMC), is an overall training officer at the MMC. It was during one of the trainings he conducted with his fellow doctors when he got a call from a guy upstairs. He thought it was just another discussion on hospital plans.
“Dr. Edwin, we have to subject you to quarantine.”
Opting to pay for his news in an age when he can read it for free online, Dr. Wenceslao may not be vocal about expressing that print is not dying, but he values what he pays for: journalism.
“They put me away for two weeks because I got exposed to the first patient in Makati Med who died of COVID-19,” he said.
The patient showed up at the doctor’s office heavy on her breathing.
“The patient did not get to the emergency room triaging; it was a direct admission,” he said. “We were less than 6 feet from each other.”
Save for a surgical mask, Dr. Wenceslao wasn’t wearing full personal protective equipment. He didn’t have an inkling. It was 9 March, a time when the cases in the country had yet to occur with depressing regularity.
When he turned out negative, he went back into circulation.
“My wife was so brave. And my medical-student kids, too. They know what to do. When they get home, they prepare an area of disinfection for me from the garage level. And vitamins, too,
and emotional support and religion,” he said. “It was about both fear and satisfaction. You don’t want to get infected and, in turn, infect your loved ones. And satisfaction comes with being able to help patients get out of the hospital in one piece.”
It’s not just coronavirus.
“We always say that death is the end. There are also those who recover but would reel from permanent deficits,” he said.
You may survive a stroke but you could not speak or walk or eat your food through a tube. These could be young patients whose whole lives are ahead of them, or heads of the family, who, by some unfortunate happenstances, became dependent on their dependents.
“But I’ve also seen success stories; I know of a stroke patient who lived to old age,” he said. “I subscribe to the belief that there’s hope as long as there’s life, as long as they’re willing to fight with me.”