JESSE CORRES, M.D. Reflections of Grateful Christian Physician

“To grace the cover of VIA TIMES NEWSMAGAZINE, Illinois’ top FIL-AM newsmagazine, is a privilege and a distinct honor that I accept with deep humility. This would have been an opportune time to “plug-in and promote” corrESthetiques by JENOR & Med-e-Lastics Body Sculpting System, (brief update published separately) but may I, instead, share some personal “agony and ecstasy” moments and some reflections on the solutions undertaken. Steps that might serve as guidelines and precepts for all readers, particularly, the Generation Xers and Millennials known for their incessant dreaming and “reinvention of the wheels.” One may consider all of us HOF awardees as “SUCCESSFUL INDIVIDUALS,” which obviously come in different shades and degrees. Such success may not necessarily be all in terms of money, possessions, education, etc., or even notoriety.
My definition of success is neither based from these afore-mentioned factors but rather based on plain and simple relationship with, first and foremost, my Creator followed closely with my relationships with my fellowmen. My religious upbringing emanated from my mother who made it mandatory for our family to say the rosary and her favorite Perpetual Help and Sacred Heart Novena nightly. Needless to say, as a teacher herself, emphasis has always been the 1st & 2nd commandments. To love God with all your mind and with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself — guiding principles influencing my entire life. I probably would have been a “healer of soul” instead of being a “healer of body,” were it not for my desire of restoring my facially-deformed siblings to a semblance of normalcy and simultaneously helped uplift our financially disadvantaged family of twelve. My two facially-deformed siblings became the source of my inspiration and admiration, because despite their obvious deformities, thru no fault of their own, both decided to accept their deformities and decided to do something about them instead of denying them and languishing in self-pity. Setting these goals will be for naught, unless followed by actions to become a plastic surgeon.
Although I graduated with honors from Xavier University (a.k.a., Ateneo de Cagayan de Oro), the rigors of medical school demanded a much higher IQ level, thus doubling, if not tripling up, my efforts and study habits. At one time, I and a couple of co-medical students , have to, literally, sleep with cadaver parts in order to master human anatomy. On my second year, I felt ready for my first surgical experience by assisting my godfather surgeon, the late Dr. Julio Dolorico of Bethany Hospital in Tacloban City, Philippines. As he made his incision, blood squirted on my face, requiring me to seat on a chair to get my bearings, as I was ready to faint. However, with pure determination and an affirming prayer that I can do anything with Christ Who strengthens me, surgery went well. Medical school at Cebu Institute of Medicine was uneventful, having passed the licensing prelims, final medical exams and the qualifying ECFMG exams for US medical training. Availing the “fly now pay later”program, I first tasted the frigid US weather via PAN AM at New York’s Kennedy Airport. Since Saint Barnabas Medical Center, my sponsoring hospital, was in Livingston, New Jersey, and after a maze of taxi and bus rides from the airport to New York’s Port Authority, and on to New Jersey for another hour of bus ride, with everything all new and totally foreign. Needless to say, it was an unforgettable cold, long, lonely, hungry and tiresome journey for a native from the tropics. After a few months of adjustment to the spoken “slang-accented language,” climate, food and culture of my new found home, I occupied myself reading and volunteering in the emergency room. The operating rooms also needed surgical assistants which I readily volunteered, especially during weekends. At Saint Barnabas, I, befriended the world-renowned plastic surgeon, Dr. Lyndon A. Peer, past president of the American association of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons and editor of the prestigious ASPRS journal. His works and writings on facial deformity reconstruction and repair were legendary, especially on tissue transplantation, authoring the first or early textbooks on transplantation.
Rather than harboring the feelings of homesickness, loneliness, difficulty in understanding the language and the bone-chilling temperature, I remained positive and upbeat, and even excited. I buried myself reading and researching, especially on topics dealing with facial deformities. Being a new medical graduate, and aspiring to be a plastic surgical resident, requires an internship and four years of general or subspecialty surgical training which I did under a renowned author, anatomist, surgeon Dr. Louis Del Guercio, and Dr. Abdul H. Islami, followed by a stint at Sloan Kettering Memorial Hospital, New York for Cancer Surgery under Drs. Jerome Urban and Rueben Snyderman. Only then was I eligible to compete with American Medical graduates and other FMGs also vying for the limited and highly-coveted 1 or 2 plastic surgical residency positions. As the saying goes,”if there is a will, there is a way,” ever mindful of a Superior Being always ready to lend a hand.
In the midst of my training, I tried to put on hold my “love life” because of my financial obligations to my family, but not until I met this very lovely (intentionally not describing her as BEAUTIFUL or GORGEOUS, as she might get big headed, LOL), simple and unassuming nurse exchange student, Nora Martires. To her, I owe a lot for her love, understanding and support in my being who I am as my lifetime partner. This includes not only the continued financial support for my parents but also the promise of full education of all my nine other siblings, who are now all successful in their own rights. I was ready to go back to Philippines after passing my specialty board, a plan that postponed when Martial Law was declared. I left New Jersey and opened up my plastic surgery practice in Chicago on the invitation of my adopted sister, Dr. Mila D. Puray, internist hematologist, and her husband, Dr. Cesar M. Puray, pediatrician and sexologist. Sharing offices at Mount Sinai Hospital, we became Adjunct or Assistant Clinical Instructors at Rush Medical School, and finally set up our practices and offices in the southwest part of Chicago.
It took me 16 years before returning to the Philippines. Together with Dr. & Mrs. Adolfo Maglaya, my wife and I, as members of Illinois ‘goodwill delegation headed by the late State Senator James Taylor and Chicago Chief Police Superintendent Fred Rice, went to the Philippines on the invitation of President Ferdinand Marcos. During the trip, our American guests were not only impressed by our patented Filipino hospitality, beauty and grace, but also the absolute power that the Philippine President can weld (i.e., delaying a departing commercial plane while entertaining our Goodwill Delegation in the Palace) which incumbent President Richard Nixon at that time, cannot do in the American setting. I believed that it also cleared the minds of some of our American guests, that Filipinos no longer live in caves or wearing G-strings when they saw our skyscrapers, 5-star Vegas-type hotel accommodations and the police motorcycle-escorted sightseeing and shopping activities, culminated by an audience with President Ferdinand & First Lady Imelda Marcos at Malacanang Palace. Although we were wined and dined by our elite hosts, we could not help but notice some of dire financial and medical needs of local people and relatives in some of our individually-privately-held visits. Such observations have since given us the incentive of forming and joining medical/surgical missions to the Philippines galvanized by the completion of family financial and educational obligations (all brothers and sisters fully achieving all their formal chosen professions). My wife and I have always considered it our blessings and a privilege to serve the least, the lonely, the lost and almost forgotten, in the ensuing 30 years, and hopefully more years to come. If you have not joined medical missions, I can only encourage you to try one as it is the most satisfying experience one can ever have. So gratifying that it can be addicting, I guess it’s because it fulfills the second most important law of all the commandments.
My first two decades of medical practice in Chicago were highlighted by the privilege of serving and being elected as President of Philippine Association of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons of America, the Philippine Medical Association of Chicago and Midwest, the largest group of medical doctors of Filipino descent. This was followed by my election as the founding President of the International Medical Council of Illinois, a group of 16 foreign medical societies in Chicago. This became the sounding board and advocacy group against the xenophobic practices and policies on foreign medical graduates practicing in the state of Illinois. Our lobbying efforts both in Springfield and the halls of congress in Washington, DC have certainly paved the way for future” foreign,” now called “international” medical graduates to be treated on a more equal footing with our American medical colleagues.
The birth of my three daughters, Christine, Jennifer and Jacqueline and the completion of all their respective degrees only added more joy to our family–all professionals
with their own successful happy families At this point, one would think that I could not ask for a better life, and therefore, should rest on my laurels, especially after being a recipient of 2014 Chicago Hall of Fame Filipino-American awards of CPR TV & VIATIMES NEWSMAGAZINE.
Strangely enough, except for a transient and sometimes fleeting sense of satisfaction, the successful attainment of goals, be it financial, academics, political, social, or even religious, does not equal to a complete fulfillment and therefore peace of mind. Awards and accolades only trigger a more ardent desire for higher goals and do even better. Hence, one should be reminded by our Lord’s thought-provoking, “what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but suffer the loss of his soul?” My more enduring satisfaction were those felt after rendering a labor of love thru medical or surgical services to the marginalized and the abandoned, expecting nothing in return. But even these feelings are also temporary, unless coupled by the realization and deep conviction of Jesus’ admonition that “whatever you have done to the least of my brethren, you have done it unto Me.” We will never have complete satisfaction and peace of mind while on earth as “St. Augustine’s prayer, “My soul will be restless until it rests on Thee.”
To our readers of all ages, especially the Generations Xers & Millennials (the techies), other Intellectuals and Doctors harboring that “God Complex Attitude” of being able to achieve anything: LET’S HOLD ON AND CONTINUE PURSUING ALL OUR DREAMS!! TOTAL AND PEACEFUL ACHIEVEMENT OF THESE DREAMS CAN ONLY BE COMPLETE IF COUPLED BY OUR PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ALMIGHTY. Otherwise, that result may end up as just another question, ” IS THAT ALL THERE IS?” still looking for answers, and therefore, EMPTY AND HOLLOW. However, if the goal or product was designed mainly to help people and for the greater glory of God, then its success becomes more fulfilling. In the past, doctors were wrongly, or rightly, described as having a God complex. When a physician starts using or mentioning “God” in his/her practice, he or she was perceived to be a “mahina” or “weak practitioner,” which I vehemently disagree. As a Christian physician, having personally experienced the Lord’s magnanimity and goodness, in both my medical and non-medical activities, I have to give credit where credit is due — and that is to THANK THE LORD FOR ALL HIS PRECIOUS GIFTS AND FOR MAKING ME & MY WIFE AS HIS INSTRUMENTS OF PEACE AND LOVE.
I continue to marvel how my heart beats at 80/minute; my lungs breathing 20/minute even asleep, WITHOUT TIRING for more than 70 years? Can the Darwinian “trial & error” concept achieve the magnificent precision of how our body organs and systems work? Did you ever notice the beauty and spectacular arrangements of the trillions of constellations of stars and planets, and yet, they do not collide? There’s got to be a God or Superior Being! Do we ever pause, even for a moment, a word of thanks for all these blessings? The good news is that we, Christians, have been chosen as His people. HE CHOSE US NOT US CHOOSING HIM! Privileged of being among the chosen and endowed with a wondrous life by a magnanimous and benevolent God, a grateful soul like me can only THANK and PRAISE HIM PROFUSELY FOR ALL THE BLESSINGS HE BESTOWED, PRESENT & FORTHCOMING I can only admonish everybody to continue Loving and Serving God thru service to our fellow men. If we strive to have peace with oneself (TAKE CARE OF YOUR HEALTH), peace with our fellowmen (LOVE AND FORGIVENESS) and peace with God (CONFESS, ATONE,TRUST AS SAVIOR & LORD) only then can we claim, REAL,TRUE SUCCESS and probably HAPPINESS.
Still trying to find the SECRET of that elusive success or happiness? It’s really NO SECRET for us, Christians, having been told all along to “SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND ALL THESE WILL BE ADDED UNTO YOU!” Continued Success, Peace and Happiness to you and God Bless us All!!”
Dr. Jesse & his ever-supportive wife Nora Nora join different Philippine Medical mission groups from different states for the last 30 years, mostly, the OPERATION WE CARE GROUP from Ohio (headed by Dr. Mel Simon), and Delaware, Texas, California, Palawan, PAGES of New Jersey, Society of Philippine Surgeons of America, FEU and Bisaya Medical Missions and, of course, the PMAC of Chicago, on a first-come, first-served basis. This year they will be joining a Filipino Canadian Group of Missionaries.