There’s a lot of drama in hospitals, so much that every generation has a landmark medical series: “General Hospital,” “Doogie Howser, MD” and “Grey’s Anatomy” provided many years of entertainment (and pre-Google medical knowledge). To deal with mortality matters on a daily basis, doctors need to keep their hearts light—which makes a good sense of humor critical to survival.
Wilfredo “Will” Liangco not only survived medical school, a Philippine General Hospital (PGH) internship, and residency at the PGH Cancer Institute with his humor and sanity intact: He mined it all for a series of hilarious essays that became “Even Ducks Get Liver Cancer and Other Medical Misadventures” (Milflores Publishing, 2022, 235 pages). Liangco puts his extremely good sense of the ridiculous to good use to rid us of the notion that hospitals are somber places: They’re a source of unique comic relief, too.
“Not all stories in the hospital have to be about great tragedies or triumphs of the human spirit,” Liangco writes. “Sometimes there are stories about ordinary things, like disgruntled residents hanging around in a coffee shop, ranting and gossiping about their terrible bosses … (of fellows) hoarding leftovers from office lunches or whining about their much-delayed stipends.”
Scalpel-sharp wit
He’s funniest when he does just that: ranting about colleagues (real names withheld, of course); detailing the depths of his deprivation of food and funds; and sharing the absurd things people say in the most serious circumstances. The wit is scalpel-sharp and its favorite target is Doctor Will himself. “Even Ducks” starts slow but has you laughing out loud once you get what’s exaggerated and what’s simply ludicrous but true.
In the book’s introduction, essayist Jessica Zafra shares why doctors who become authors have a distinct advantage: “It’s just as well that more physicians are not moonlighting as writers. The subject of literature is the human condition … The knowledge of our frailty and our stubborn capacity to endure is the stuff of literature, and this is where doctors set up camp.”
In writing humorously about the human condition, Liangco does not spare himself: One of the funniest yet most touching essays is on his own father’s cancer diagnosis which inspired his decision to choose oncology and care for his father himself. His story of a charity patient who was so happy to secure thousands of pesos for his chemo medicine, only to find out it was just for a single vial, is both amusing and harrowing. But the patient still smiles and does not give up; this is a book about Filipinos, after all.
“Even Ducks Get Liver Cancer” is something to give young doctors as a token of appreciation and to let them know you’re in on the jokes. It will also inspire you, the reader, to give food to every medical resident you meet on your next hospital stay. Be generous. The stipend’s probably late.
—Contributed INQ
Available at milflorespublishing.com.