THE Department of Public Health and the local medical community have stepped up their efforts to facilitate the training of local residents to fill the healthcare workforce on Guam.
Dolores Lee, a former public school teacher and medical student currently under a training program at the University of Hawaii Medical, is scheduled to return to Guam in December to further her training and exposure to surgery procedures at the clinic of Dr. Thomas Shieh.
“I will take Lee under my wing,” said Shieh, who is a member of the clinical faculty of the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii, where he completed his residency program.
“It is good for these women to observe the primary care aspect on Guam. I am greatly honored and privileged to be a doctor, who also teaches what medicine is all about.”
Besides Lee, three other women have put their careers on the backburner to attend Medical School at the University of Hawaii.
The other trainees were Luella Marie Manlucu, Olivia Dote and Christina Oh, who is originally from Denver, Colorado.
The program allows the trainees to observe medical procedures.
Shieh said the curriculum was based on a model designed for the University of Hawaii’s doctor residency program, in which job training and credit will be received toward their degrees.
The three-week program consisted of Friday lectures on women’s health. The trainees performed pelvic exams, pap smears, breast exams and 4D ultra sounds. They delivered a baby using a pelvic model.
They were also trained on clinical office and financial procedures.
Shieh urges graduates to come back home after their off-island training and serve the people of Guam. He advises them to practice medicine with the “right attitude.”
“Do not let yourself be enticed into returning purely for scholarship, money or loans repayment. Do it because you care for your patients,” he advises medical students.
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