A doctor's life: Sex change

I had sex change. Actually, I had sex change surgery arranged for a Singaporean lass who wanted to become a man, which was part of the job that I landed after one year and 9 months of joblessness.

YIHospital, a 500some-bed hospital with about 1,500 staff workers on the western banks of the mighty Chao Phraya river in Bangkok City, Thailand was the hospital where my wife and two children found employment after I was cut off from MVC and the SDA church. This is a general hospital which has an international department that is staffed mostly by Filipinos who are hired primarily because their spoken english doesn't have a strong accent and can be easily understood by the international community. My son JP was one of the earlier hired nurses, my wife came next and then my daughter. The position that was offered to me was "International coordinator" and I was in a team of about 15 others who were the connection between the Thai doctors and the international, non-Thai, prospective clients. We each had a computer and there was a phone that we used for answering calls. In short, it was an online job in medical tourism.

Our task as a team was to respond to callers or emails for enquiries about the procedures that were available, which are plastic (cosmetic) surgery for any part of the body, sex reassignment surgery (sex change) for male-to-female and female-to-male, aesthetic gynecology, dental and orthodontics, lasik, varicose vein surgery, all the different types of skin treatments, hair transplant, traditional medicine, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, among a myriad of other treatments. We would profile the patient and check if the procedure that they want is appropriate for them before they can come for the actual treatment. Another function that I did was something like "damage control." Complaints from patients who have gone back to their country would be coursed through me and I was expected to move heaven and earth to satisfy the angry client whose surgery was botched up, didn't produce the desired results or got infected or rejected and they were demanding a refund, which the surgeons were not likely to give even if they were threatened with legal action. Sometimes I imagined myself like the traditional rice cake (bibingka) in the Philippines, which is cooked with fire above and fire below, but this job was interesting and it opened my mind to another world of medical practice.

One aspect that made working here interesting was the immersion into the culture of the Thai. Doctor to staff and management to rank-and-file relationship is totally different from that of the Philippines and also is the work-place ethics. Doctor's can easily wrangle themselves out of legal problems and it looks to me that they behave like they are above the regular masses. One top plastic surgeon - Dr. G, easily has about 2 major surgeries a day and maybe 5 or more minor ones and he doesn't care much about post-op care since he doesn't visit his patients in their rooms. The patients of this particular surgeon can only see him after surgery if they're wheeled or they walked to his office upon discharge.

Before I knew it seven years had gone by and I was turning 60 in a few months. This was when I was informed that I was being terminated upon reaching my 6th decade birthday, because the mandatory age for retirement was 60. This was something that I was expecting and I welcomed the news with an open mind. Joblessness would be my friend - again, and I was more familiar with her now.

One thing that struck me while writing this story was the realization that the obsession of seeing to it that I brought up my kids on a first-hand basis had its rewards down through the years. Holding them as newborn babes, helping them take their first steps, assisting them as they learned from books and teachers, watching them fall in and out of love, hugging them when they hurt, proudly seeing them get their diplomas on stage, working with them in the same hospital while they made their own waves as responsible citizens and other events in my life have transformed this life into one big awesome story, which of course is still a work in progress. Who knows, I might even have a chapter where I'll be forgetting what to write next, because of dementia.

At the moment we're still under one roof with Kukie and Kailee, while JP and Nok are just a few minutes down the road. Jo ann's retirement comes possibly next year and that could mean a major move or jobs somewhere else for both of us, which could yet be the most interesting chapter in the story of my life.