I was busy rummaging national bookstore in SM Megamall when I chance upon The Legacy of Medicine book by an known Filipino physician 6 years ago. Naturally I was ecstatic. Since my genre has always been from new age jessica zafra books to Kundera, I was naturally curious about a physician writer. Besides the fact that there aren't many published, most are usually busy getting money, acquiring more titles or pretending to know more about the world around them.
And so I bought it. Six years after, they were giving it out for free. Damn, I should have waited.
So I read it. Again and again. It was about distinguished internists. Something I never fully understood. What makes a distinguished internist? Because I encountered one of the people discussed in that book and I found him arrogant. There was no humility in him.
And I should know because I have interviewed 2 distinguished physicians during my short stint in a publication years ago: Dr. Thelma Navarrete-Clemente and Dr. Fe Del Mundo. And they were very very humble. Knowing what they have accomplished, the doctor whom I encountered should get lessons from them.
Enter Professor X. Young. Idealistic. Nationalistic. His book says it all. Everything about his struggle says it all. And I have to add that I will never encounter a physician in the same league as those of Del Mundo and Clemente until I saw him speak. There is something about his past that made him so much more. It enriched him. Made him better. Made him want to change the world.
Enter Magneto and his acolytes. They seek to diminish humanity. Keep the mutants in power. They want to maintain the status quo. Keep the lay people poor, helpless, and ignorant. And keep the other young idealistic mutants in the dark.
Philippine Healthcare. Our own Muir island. It's a sham really. But this isn't about them. This is about Professor X and what he has done to the poor and the helpless. This is about the Xavier Institute and the help they provide among the newly discovered mutants.
I'm not a believer. I'm not even remotely practicing. But in times like this, I'd like to believe that there is a force out there bigger than me. A force that keeps this young idealistic physician to toil, work for the impoverished, and find, among the ruins of his dark past, his very own salvation.

To Professor X and his X-men.
May the you be blessed by Apollo, Asclepios, Hygeia and Panacea.