50 years of celebrating Training Excellence,
Service, Social Accountability, and Life
“MGA KWENTONG SINGKWENTA”
Agnes Alarilla-Alba, MD
What sustains an organization to thrive for 50 years despite all the challenges and hardships posed by intra and inter-societal relationships, national concerns, and international competitiveness and challenges?
The Philippine Society of Nephrology has evolved thru the years, aiming to improve the adaptability of the training curriculum. It is never static. The desire to improve the trainees, benchmark, or surpass the international standards is the desire within. It is palpable as the leaders make way for the changes and make the curriculum innovative, adding global goals that we as a nation wish to achieve. It may be revolutionary, and modifications may be daunting, but the spirit of inclusivity balances out the team’s high standards. It makes the paper curriculum more human – giving way for people to improve over time and not discouraging groups who want to build a training program. Gone are the days that say we are only the best, and PSN is here to say we strive to be the best wherever and in whatever conditions we are.
We embark on continuous training for research. We are now in collaborative research that hopes to impact Filipinos in general positively.
The Philippine Society of Nephrology embraces all. It covers all aspects of health care. It can go PREVENTIVE as it moves initially on the national screening thru the preventive programs jointly initiated with the government. Accompanying the learnings, we are now more on kidney health education and literacy, emphasizing how cost-effective and efficient it can be. Globally and even in the last WKD undertaking of having HEALTHY KIDNEY to all – media literacy means going on collaborative social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and blogging- we even go tik talking.
We go CURATIVE as we upgrade ourselves in the current treatment modalities, create Clinical practice guidelines, align with international guidelines, and adapt them to our local settings. We are not only locally spreading the new ways of treatment thru our chapters, but we continuously increase our number with a conscious effort to check which areas need more nephrologists geographically. In addition, we participate in international conferences and are now a country part of ISN, ASPAN, and IPNA.
Interconnectedness is much easier and more economical these days. We can get international experts to participate in our discussion now more than ever thru teleconferences. Learning has no barriers now. We can be connected if the society needs to go nationally and internationally. Speakers from our society can easily participate in different organizations without much trouble in besetting their schedules.
We tackle human interest issues – we are at the forefront of the battle against human trafficking. In addition, we initiated the creation of guidelines for Organ Donation.
We are not only reactive as disasters beset our country, but we go Proactive as we plan on how to act on disasters that occur, like an earthquake response action. We create roadmaps and processes like in cases of leptospirosis, and COVID upsurge happens. We were once taken aback, but now we are more prepared, responsive to what is happening now, and plan to have a more concerted response to issues and calamities. We are all in solidarity at all times
The Philippine Society of Nephrology cares for the members of its society – from disaster assistance to legal assistance to a listening ear during a mental and physical crisis. The BOT and each and every member is a sounding board ever ready to listen and respond accordingly.
PSN is the society that genuinely cares about the welfare of all Filipinos, whatever age they may be. Therefore, PSN is the society to reckon with and is the formidable fortress that truly embraces each and everyone when it comes to kidney health for all.
Itutuloy natin ang ating mga makabuluhang kwento. Higit pa sa KWENTONG SINGKWENTA at sa mga dekada pang darating!
