A doctor for poor cancer victims

Two overseas job offers did not prompt Dr. Manuel Legaspi III to pack his bags and leave his cancer patients behind. Rather, he declined these opportunities and stayed in Cebu to be with his family and his patients.

Here, he finds joy in being with his wife, also a doctor, and three children, where he helps fellow Cebuanos suffering and fighting cancer. Here, he campaigns vigorously for early cancer detection and prevention.

But working as an oncologist in a government hospital is dotted with challenges that are mostly not beyond his control, such as when late-stage cancer patients seek his medical intervention, lack of medicines and hospital laboratories, and the expensive drugs for cancer treatment, which his patients cannot afford.

Legaspi, with his calm disposition, cope with these challenges with a positive outlook, spending time to get to know his patients and exchanging jokes with them.

“I can still help them in other ways like palliative care or by being there for them and listening to them, especially when cases are difficult. My patients would ask me why I am always happy. I would tell them that if we are all sad, what could we possibly do,” Legaspi, who practices at Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC), said.

For someone who did not want to be a doctor when he was young, treating patients and campaigning for early cancer detection and prevention come naturally for Legaspi, 55.

“When I was a kid, I did not want to be a doctor. I wanted to be a pilot, a lawyer, a scientist or anything that is not related to doctoring, because I see my mother, who is also a doctor, tending to patients almost 24 hours a day,”’ he said.

He said he thought his sister will follow the steps of their mother but she loved nursing more and became a nurse.

Legaspi, who is the eldest of two siblings, said, “I instead followed my mother and become a doctor.”

Just as becoming a doctor was not in his list of career choices, so was oncology. Legaspi said he wanted to be a surgeon after his internship, but due to training unavailability, he pursued internal medicine instead.

After graduation, when it was a trend then to go into subspecialty, he was contemplating of pursuing pulmonary medicine or cardiology but never oncology, which is the study and treatment of tumors.

“I had a notion at the time that oncologists deal with patients who are dying and I don’t want to deal with these kinds of patients from the start. When I was a resident doctor, I had a hard time communicating about certain diseases, not just cancer,” Legaspi said.

But it turned out that the slot he applied then, which he is now occupying, is related to oncology; hence, he was sent to Manila for further training where he became a resident oncologist in VSMMC after.

“As time went on, I learned to like oncology, my profession in general. I found out that the most important thing is to be with my patients who are suffering under very difficult cases,” he said.

For Legaspi, though, he still finds it difficult telling patients they have cancer, particularly those who are in the advanced stages.

“If asked by patients upfront, I tell them frankly what their illness is because it is their right to know and they will appreciate the truth. I get affected emotionally. I couldn’t help it, especially working in a government institution. We can only do so much. When a patient dies, part of me dies as well,” he explained.

To prevent more people from suffering from cancer, Legaspi embarked on a personal campaign to lecture about early cancer detection and prevention.

“I don’t find lectures burdensome in my line of work. As much as possible, I talk to promote early cancer detection and prevention. I also repeat the salient points of my lectures through the media because I believe that the more I promote, the more the probability of people hearing it and realizing its importance,” he said.

He also conduct cancer lectures organized by the Eduardo J. Aboitiz Cancer Center of the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc.

Legaspi pointed out that since cancer is a terrible disease, a person has to practice early cancer detection measures.

“Many people who come to me are already in the advanced stages of cancer. I think many are still ignorant about cancer or they are fearful about the disease or they simply don’t have the money to pay. So there is more work to be done when it comes to advocating early cancer detection and prevention,” he said.

Because of this, with the support of his family, he will continue to promote the importance of early cancer detection and prevention.

This is one of the reasons he did not accept jobs offers abroad, even with salary 20 times more than he is earning now.

“I also don’t want to leave my family and I just can’t leave my patients behind to anyone else,” he said.

When he is not tending to his patients or doing his advocacy work, he is with his family, fulfilling his dream to spend as much quality time as possible with his wife and children.

“Family always takes precedence. But they understand that there are times when patients have to be addressed first,” he said. /Contributed By Nancy R. Cudis