My Indang RHU Community Immersion Experience

          Engaging directly with the community of Indang revealed to me that traditional health practices like hilot, suob, herbal remedies, and even spiritual healing are not just fallback options. They are actually deeply rooted ways of life that are not just alternatives to western medicine, and are primary responses to illness for many families. It surprised me that even young adults with formal education still preferred CAM for common ailments like body pain and fatigue. This wasn't due to a lack of knowledge, but rather cultural familiarity, affordability, and perceived effectiveness. I heard stories about blessed oils used after childbirth. These showed me that health beliefs are often combined with spiritual and communal identity. It challenged my assumption that modern medicine had replaced these practices. I realized that medical care in rural Philippines must respect and integrate these traditions to be effective.        ...

          When I learned that I was assigned to the Indang Rural Health Unit (RHU) for my summer immersion, I was both excited and nervous. I looked forward to seeing the real-life application of what we’ve been studying as first-year medical students, here in Indang where I’ve been living while studying medicine at Cavite State University. Looking back, what happened over the duration of our summer immersion was a transformative experience that shaped my understanding of healthcare delivery and reinforced my sense of purpose in becoming a doctor. What surprised me the most during the immersion was how fast I went from observing to becoming someone who helped keep the RHU running. I didn’t expect that I’d be confidently taking patients’ vital signs, doing history-taking, and explaining survey questions to actual patients. I was also surprised by the work that goes into running a rural health unit every single day, even during challenging conditions like sto...

Today marked our last day of immersion duty at the Indang RHU, and from the start, we were determined to leave a good mark as representatives of CvSU's medicine program. Unlike the days before, today the weather was as sunny as could be, which probably helped cause the influx of patients the entire day. At this point, taking patients' vital signs, registering them, and taking their chief complaints were things we've done so much, that it was no wonder that there were no issues or errors that arose the entire day in terms of the registration area activities. Since deworming and the first 1000 days were taught yesterday, today's health teaching focused on dengue and family planning; meaning that I wasn't assigned to any health teaching tasks today. Observing them, I can attest to the success of their health teaching sessions. When the queue of patients lining up in the registration area lessened, we attempted to gather data such as that of infrastructure, or pharmacy ...

After only having immersion duty in the Indang RHU on Monday for the previous week. Today, we finally continue or RHU duties! Like before, the second-years were assigned to the consultation room, while the first-years were assigned to the registration area. Different from the previous days of duty here at the RHU though, we finally start the health teaching program here. Due to the scheduling issues brought about by the stormy weather, it was decided that all of the teaching was to be conducted here at the RHU. Though we would have liked to teach the specific communities of the barangays, we were still satisfied with the opportunity to teach the community through the people going to the RHU.      For the teaching, we were assigned in pairs with specific topics to teach, scheduled at certain times. Paired with a second-year student, we were assigned to teach about deworming and the first 1000 days. We split the topics so we could focus on a specific one, and I took dewormi...

Today, for the first time since the immersion program started, I found myself not being in Indang, Cavite as I went back home to my grandparents' home in Las Piñas just in case the storms got too rough. Though the storms threaten to stay strong going into the next week, me and my groupmates kept our heads down and continued to work on the parts assigned to us for the CAM and local health system report outputs. We were told that our schedule for next week was RHU duty for Monday, campus preparations on Tuesday, and campus presentations from Wednesday to Thursday. Though I have to admit I wanted to spend more time serving the Indang RHU next week, it was understandable that we needed to be in the campus in Tuesday since CHED would be visiting us that day, and they are responsible for the scholarships for the majority of us CvSU Medicine students.  Our leader Richard meeting at Sunday 1 PM so we could discuss and edit things once the outputs were finished, which helped me settle into ...

Today, we still haven't gone back to our RHU duty in Indang, and were informed that a suspension for tomorrow was announced as well. Worried that these suspensions will hinder our ability to make a good local health system report for the Indang RHU, our group asked for approval to go to the RHU tomorrow despite the suspension and gather data needed for the Monday presentation. We were told though, that instead of visiting the RHU, we could instead visit their official social media account for such data. We were also told to observe the disaster response of the Indang RHU during the calamity through their social media account as well, since this is something that is an important part of the population-based health services of a local health system. Our group ended up gathering everyone's insights regarding the Indang RHU's calamity response, so that all of our sentiments are included and considered. Through the suspensions of our RHU duty, the resilience of my fellow Indang ...

Today, since our RHU duty was suspended once more, us first-years spent the early portion of the day printing the health teaching materials that we are going to use to teach the communities in Barangays Guyam Malaki and Guyam Munti about the topics of deworming, the first 1000 days, dengue and its prevention, as well as family planning. Since the second-years assigned with the designing of the materials gave us the go signal for printing the tarpaulins and pamphlets, me and three other first-years who lived near the Cavite State University - Indang campus went to print it in a printing shop near the university. Though the storm was still occurring, we managed to meet up during a time where it temporarily stopped. For the payment for the printing, our immersion group leader Richard said that some of the second-years lent 2500 pesos so that we have money to use immediately for our expenses, and that all of us as a whole will evenly split the final bill spent for everything once the immer...

Today, our immersion in the Indang rural health unit was cancelled, as expected due to the stormy weather brought by tropical storm Crising. Our supervisors went ahead and provided us with our guidelines for the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) report and presentation, so we can add that to the stuff we'll be working on while our immersion program is on hold. We were also informed that our minimum target survey answers for the CAM study was increased from 30 to 50. This was no matter for me though since I had already had 3 patients answer the survey. We were informed that if the weather conditions do not improve from Wednesday to Friday, our last resort would be for us to return to the community on July 29 to complete our interviews. Since we had the day free for us to handle the preparations for the CAM and community reports, we consulted the second-years for the task delegations. For our health teaching, some of us first-years were assigned with the printing of the ta...

Today, since there was no announced suspension of classes in Indang, we pushed through to our RHU immersion despite the stormy weather. Since I was expecting a suspension for today, I actually waited as late as possible before going to the RHU, but I didn't let that make me late since punctuality is a priority. As usual, we first-years worked the registration area of the Indang Rural Health Unit. Since we needed to survey the local population regarding their awareness and usage of complementary and alternative medicine, we made sure to offer the survey to each patient we had, especially because we realized very early on in the day that we were going to get less patients than usual because of the weather. I actually learned a bit of how to conduct these kinds of surveys, since it had been quite a while since the last time I did one of them. I surveyed 3 patients, and one of them was memorable because even though they weren't interested in complementary and alternative medicine, ...

     Today, I woke up as ready as ever to help out at the Indang Rural Health Unit. Unfortunately, as per the announcement of Cavite's governor Abeng Remulla, we did not have any RHU duty today due to the tropical storm Crising. Our community supervisors were informed at 8 am that our RHU duty for the day was cancelled. To still be productive, we instead worked on our complementary and alternative medicine  and community health teaching reports. I ended up being assigned to the Guyam Malaki health teaching, where we were to teach the community about deworming, and the first 1000 days (the dos and don'ts  during the period from conception to a child's second birthday). Between those two topics though, I ended up writing the content related to deworming in our report, because that was what we were going to teach and put into our educational materials.         For the community health report, I made tables for the top 10 morbidities in Inda...

     Today marked our fourth day of immersion at the Indang Rural Health Unit. As set from yesterday onward, we first-year students of Cavite State University's Doctor of Medicine program were assigned to the registration area of the RHU to register patients, get their chief complain and symptoms, in addition to getting their vital signs. Though the rain started not too harsh earlier in the week, today it really started to feel like its leading to a storm. The rain was really strong in the morning, though that did not stop us from arriving on time. Though there was slight leaking in certain parts of the hospital, the inside of the RHU managed to stay somewhat dry despite the weather. The ones who were really inconvenienced by the strong rain were the patients who arrived without umbrellas, as some of them got soaked, and some of them didn't have umbrellas to use to go home after they had their consultations. Today, I finally got the hang of taking vital signs in a timely ...

          Since us first and second years of the medicine program of CvSU Indang already familiarized ourselves with the facilities and regular activities of the RHU of Indang yesterday, we were able to assign ourselves to designated tasks more optimally with the guidance of the second year students. Yesterday, we split ourselves into three groups handling busy areas of the RHU: the registration area, the consultation area, and the laboratory area. Since it was decided that the laboratory area needed our assistance the least, in addition to being the place least suited to practice our knowledge in medicine, us first years were told to handle the registration area while the second years handle the consultation area. Admittedly, I was slightly disappointed when I heard the decision , especially since I was looking forward to observing the consultation interactions between the health officers and the patients, the giving of prescriptions, and the physical exam...

Today, me and my fellow first-year classmates of Cavite State University's medicine program officially begin our summer immersion program at the RHU (Rural Health Unit) of Indang, Cavite! Wanting to be punctual at our first day there to give a good impression —in addition to our understanding that we are representing our university as sort of ambassadors, we arrived at 7:45 am even though our call time was 8:00 am. Before anything else, we were gathered with our second-year upperclassmen and were briefed and welcomed by Dr. Rosa Alegre and Dr. Rommel Vicedo. They informed us on the current state of the local community healthcare of Indang, and the role that the RHU plays in it. Most notably, we learned that of the 36 Barangays in Indang, only 35 have BHS's (Barangay Health Stations); with the lone one not having one being Poblacion IV, which is covered specifically by the RHU. Knowing that Indang has a projected 69.428 population made it more understandable how health stations ...

Today, we had our orientation to prepare us for our summer immersion program which we will take part in from July 15 to July 25 of 2025. We will be immersed in the municipality RHU (rural health unit) of Indang, Cavite. To be honest, I am quite excited at this opportunity given to us to be exposed to the actual settings that we are to be working in after we graduate —especially since we, as first-year students of Cavite State University - Don Severino Delas Alas campus' doctor of medicine program, have the ultimate goal of being physicians who can serve those in need in rural communities where there is a lack of doctors. Though I feel a sense of nervousness and anxiety, knowing that we will be accompanied by the second and third-year upperclassmen brings relief, especially since they've already been in such immersions in their previous summers.      Indang Rural Health Unit  (C) Google Maps The orientation for the day, helped paint a picture of what we'll encounter d...