September 7, 2006

Dr. Edith M. Regalado
Department of Preventive and Community Medicine

Dear Dr. Regalado:

After reading your article on Dr. Alejandra Paz Garcia in the Mediscope (1st and 2nd Quarters 2006 issue), I decided to write you because whatever gets into print is legitimized no matter how inaccurate they are. And the Mediscope articles, I am afraid, shall be used by future researchers.

Dr. Garcia was never into community medicine. After teaching in the Department of Anatomy, she handled the course in Anthropological, Cultural and Developmental Medicine and Medical Social Work under the Office of the Dean of the College. She worked with the staff of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health in handling the project on Family Health Service.

Family Health Service was not community-oriented but family-oriented. The families in Barrio Salapan selected for the program were not squatters; I should know for I was the one who recruited these families. There was no community immersion until 1970, when the Limay Community Project was established under Dean Gonzalo Austria.

Dr. Garcia could not be the mother of Community Medicine. The term community medicine was originally used in the program developed by Drs. Kurt Duschle and Hugh Fulmer in Kentucky in the early 1960s. I brought the concept of community medicine to UERM in 1967 but UERM used the term only in the late 1980s and only after Social Medicine which was popularized in the 1950s and 1960s was used under Dr. Peralta.

Dr. Garcia became acting head of the Department of Preventive and Public Health in 1962 to 1964, after the death of Dr. Romeo Y. Atienza and when Dr. Precentacion C. Peralta went to the USA under the USAID program.

Dr. Garcia went to the USA under a grant from Pfizer Laboratories and not Fulbright scholarship. This was in 1960-61. Whereas Family Health Service was established in 1959-60.

Many of the above are supported by documents.

                                                                             Truly yours,

                                                                            FERNANDO S. SANCHEZ JR., M.D.

Cc: Chairman, Editorial Board, Mediscope • Editor-In-Chief, Mediscope • Managing Editor, Mediscope