October 31, 2002

     It's Halloween and what perfect time to talk about an appropriate topic - "spirituals".

     For our purposes, halloween and spirituals may not be related at all because it is not what you think it is. "Spiritual" has been re-defined by medical students in the early 80's and became increasingly popular through the years. Loosely defined, spirituals simply refer to "copies of past examinations".

     If you were too dependent on spirituals, refused to read your books, and ended up failing, that's the horror of horrors. Well, I guess, there's that Halloween connection after all.

     Spirituals are obtained by medical students through compilation and other 'resourceful' means, with much emphasis on 'resourceful'.

     They are not a guarantee to pass but they help. They are usually actual copies of previous examination (thank God for 25 cent/copy 'xerox' machines) or a compilation of questions of a previous examination. Sometimes, a class would assign each student a number to remember, then these questions are put together for the next generation to use. If spirituals have helped you one time or another before, please observe a moment of silence and thank the previous generation.

     The reason spirituals are so popular is that in a book or a chapter, you can only make a question so many times, and you can only revise this question so many times. Besides, aren't the professors told to frame questions relevant to a topic they want their students to learn or concentrate on learning? You can make changes after changes to an original question but the students (most of them, anyway) can still easily spot the answer. Heck, they won't have trouble identifying Cher who has replaced 90% of her anatomy with spare parts.

"The story was dismissed as pure baloney at first. Nurses at C-UP loved to sleep in the horizontal position too, and the doctor was probably just Dr. Apistar, who used to do his rounds at 4 am., and the good doctor did not bother to wake them up."

     One organization within the College was unfairly, and I said unfairly, targetted for the proliferation of these spirituals. I've been hearing about the group's reputation since my Biology days. My boardmates at that time were medical students and one of them had this habit of locking himself up in his room during 'study hour'. When I asked one of his classmates why, I was told he is a member of - (put name of group here) - and he had something "exclusive to the group". Isn't that an incentive to join the group or what?

     I have come to know personally most of the members of the organization and most of them I truly admired and respected, that's why the "spirituals source" tag was way off-base. Anyway, during our time, you don't need an organization to avail such reading materials. A husband and wife were given a sort of franchise to set up a copy machine within Roxas Hall. The popularity of spirituals made their photocopying business so successful that they are now probably major stockholders at Xerox.

     You just have to walk by the copy machine and ask the "xerox lady" what's new, and she will ask you, "Pathology, 1987 midterms? How about Surgery, 1988 finals?" The copies have been reproduced so many times, you could barely read yours. They are probably photocopied more times than Desiderata.

     In our class, we had a number of small "organized" groups (come on, don't tell me you didn't go to a "group study"), the purpose of which is to make sure everyone gets a copy of whatever spirituals that's currently hot. I had my own group but it was useless, I could not even remember the group's name (to the members, don't feel bad, I still remember all of you). Needless to say, I was rejected when I applied to such groups as "The All-Genius Club", "Top 25 Only", and "The Beautiful Minds". I wonder why.

     I don't mean to offend the members of the "All-Genius Club" or "The Book Worms" but I think these "spirituals" are normal and are also common in other places. They just call them "reviewers". Major universities, such as Stanford, even make huge profits out of them by publishing past USMLE's and other examinations into books. The "xerox lady" should have thought of that.

     Spirituals are never meant to replace books. My opinion is they should not compete with each other and they should go hand in hand. I did refuse a spiritual once and read the book all night. After the examination the next day, I learned that 100% of the questions were lifted from spirituals.

     That was scary.

     Those who are old enough to remember the University Hospital very well remember the pay-ward A-UP and the single-room pay section C-UP. We learned to live by those designations but there were some things we probably wanted to know but were afraid to ask. If there's an A and a C, where's the B? Why are we calling it C-UP when there's no C-DOWN? Why do Filipinos love to put the useless "h" on their names, like Bhong, Jhun, or Bhoy? Okay, I admit those are stupid questions.

     During our time, I had a question regarding C-UP that I just had to find an answer. When I was a junior intern, the C-UP was the best place to kill time, what with pretty nurses (volunteers mostly), a long table across from the nurses station where you could read and sleep (sleep mostly), and there's a safe distance between the stairs and the station so you could hear residents making their way towards you, just enough time to get up and pretend to read.

     Things may have changed brought about by progress, especially that two additional floors were added, the C-UP may not be even called C-UP now. But years ago, you couldn't help but notice one missing room - 3C. Now, that's no big deal. So what if there's 1C, 2C and then 4C? Some buildings intentionally skip the 13th floor. 3C and 4C may be two rooms before made into one and 4C just won the naming rights through a coin toss. So what?

     Why skip 3C? There is a story to it.

     Many years ago, when the hospital was still named after some rich guy, there was a 3C. But third shift nurses started spreading the story that they would see a doctor (in lab coat, with a stethoscope around his neck) entering 3C between 2 to 4 am without the nurses or the aides (the interns were sleeping so nobody even tried to ask them) noticing that the doctor has passed the station and asked for the patient's chart. You see, to go to 3C, you have to pass by the nurses station, everytime.

     The story was dismissed as pure baloney at first. Nurses at C-UP loved to sleep in the horizontal position too, and the doctor was probably just Dr. Apistar, who used to do his rounds at 4 am., and the good doctor did not bother to wake them up. But it got worse and worse.

     Almost every night, nurses reported the same thing. One time, a nurse actually saw the "doctor" opening the door and probably thought he was a real one. The nurse struggled to look for the patient's chart and ran towards 3C. When she opened the door, there was no doctor, but only the patient and a companion. She asked, with voice trembling, "Di-in si doctor?. The patient replied, "Wala man di kakadto si doctor, Day. Nurse lang, ara' siya sa banyo." The nurse turned cold and the room felt like Minnesota in January. She mustered enough courage to glance at the empty bathroom, and still shaking, mumbled, "Ako lang di isa nurse nga naga-duty.", and she ran as fast as she could to the nurses station. She was sweating profusely now like she just ran the Chicago marathon.

     Hospital people refused to believe it at first, contending two of the patients admitted to that room were schizophrenics. And schizophrenic nurses are not that unusual (calm down, I'm just kidding). But things changed when a nurse got admitted to the room and experienced the whole thing. She was not aware of the story or just refused to believe it. Her experience that night, shall I say, made her more ill when she was discharged from the hospital.

     Finally, an older lady just came to the hospital management one time and told a story about somebody who died in that room whose spirit may not be at peace. And the only way you could put the spirit to rest is get rid of that room.

     Now you know why.

     Last year, I told a story about the "maranhig", the karay-a speaking people, like myself, version of the zombie. The continuation was supposed to be this year. I'm running out of time and space so we will see each other again next year. It will be sooner than you think.

     I hope you had a grand time trick-and-treating with your kids.

     This week's FINAL WORD comes from a human from Las Vegas:

     "Malpractice lawsuits are disasters waiting to happen. It's too bad but that's the reality. The major moving forces behind this in my simple mind are greed, envy, and anger. Money, money, money...lots of money. Let's face it. Many doctors become rich because of their lucrative practice (is it their fault?). Patients felt they have paid too much money (resentment) so these doctors got rich. Somewhere down the road the doctor made a mistake. Patient got injured (and angered). Lawyer comes to the rescue. I'll help you get money from this rich doctor but we'll have to split it, 50/50? Patient aGREED. This is a big mess! There is no solution in sight. We human beings are extreme creatures. We cried when our pets die, we pretended to be holy inside the church. We give alms to the poor. We join the rotary club, Jaycees, Knights of Columbus, deColores, etc., to look good in front of other humans. We go to war and kill each other. But, think of what's really inside your heart. We kill unborn children and downplay the event as just another elective termination of pregnancy..and still pretend to have clear conscience. Oh well, I can go on and on and on. The bottom line is we all are just human. We are doomed to kill each other one day, help one another the other day, and destroy each other the next day. History has proven this. This is our fate. We have to accept it. There is no other choice."

     Life is indeed a gamble, isn't it?

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     The author's e-mail address is at drgarcia@wvsumedaa.com

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