It’s finally that post. SINAG: The UP-PGH Specialty Training Graduation 2024 was held last December 11 2024 at the Fleur-de-lis Auditorium: a commencement exercise, a time for gratitude, and a reminder to hope.
At the end of a long day
I’m reflecting and writing this blog post several hours into my first ever duty as a Senior House Officer. It feels like only yesterday I was struggling to complete employment requirements while wearing plastic face shields. Now I’m onto the next stage of my professional journey.
Read more: Back in Manila: pre-residency, social rounds, and baby steps to adulting
But I find the sun still shines at the end of a long day’s work. The rays are a little fainter, maybe even worn-down, but still beautiful to watch. And we are comforted by the rules of the universe: the sun will always rise on the morrow.
So padayon, carry on, and congratulations to this year’s graduating batch of residents and fellows! Rest, then continue to fight the good fight.
Thank you to our department’s chair, training officer and administrative staff for the continuing support (and the flowers)!
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It’s an added privilege to graduate in a ceremony with the same theme as our batch’s name. The stars aligned in many many ways.
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A village to thank
It takes a village to be a doctor, and an even bigger village to raise a specialist. Diplomate exams are still months way, but yes I’m manifesting.
My family joked several times that they can’t count the number of times I’ve graduated. This is probably my 8th or 10th –it depends if you count first year kindergarten, that summer course in Ateneo, and those two separate ceremonies in college.
And, since the life of a doctor is one of lifelong learning, I might graduate a couple more times in the future. But that’s for much, much later!
For now, I have this village to thank, without whom I couldn’t have reached as far or as confidently:
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Gradually, then suddenly
“How did you go bankrupt?”
“Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”– Ernest Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises (1926)
Three years of residency flew by in a flash. What seemed to be groundhog days of unending work almost feel like they happened to another person. Or maybe this is just me repressing all that relative trauma.
So gradually, then suddenly –in 18 blog posts over the last 36 months. Each memory I recorded and journal I wrote included snapshots to a time when everything felt in flux. The goal of finishing residency seemed so far away. Almost impossible.
Time has a way of softening the edges and making the impossible possible. Those fits and bursts of intense emotions chipped at the mold of who I could have been. Going through primary clinical care and counseling, acute non-urgent management, palliative medicine, toxicology, primary obstetrics, community practice… each skill learned was a new self I had greeted, become, then left behind.
And suddenly it’s the end. We’re facing 2025. I’ll have to take precautions; I can’t be a stranger to my past self. So this moment, specifically, is a reminder to hold on. The blood, sweat, and tears, the joy and the euphoria –these serve as my armor against the challenges to come. As our graduation speaker puts it: to resist comparison, the inertia of life, and hopelessness.
To 2025
If all goes to plan, I’m not leaving the nest quite yet. I have more or less a dozen more duties as Senior House Officer to go– a task left to chief residents, a role I’ll be taking on this 2025 with Dena.
It will be a challenge. It already is. Being this kind of middle manager was something I considered as a new resident, but never fully thought through. The limits and boundaries are sometimes too diffuse. And the number of spreadsheets to coordinate seem unending. These things called unconditional positive regard and constructive feedback need to be revisited.
But I want my fellow and junior residents to grow, and to appreciate the highs and lows of training as I did. There’s so much to love in a lifetime of learning and service. And the years yet to come carry infinite promise.
Not yet signing off,
Jari Monteagudo, MD, MBA
Family and Community Medicine
University of the Philippines – Philippine General Hospital
Until next time! ♥
jari m 
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