Maraming Salamat Jimmy

Dr Jimmy Galvez Tan has been a major influence in my decision to take on a vocation in the field of Community Medicine and Public Health.

When I was a medical student from 1987 to 1992, Jimmy was one of the doctors we looked up to as members of a community-oriented student organization. I wanted to follow in the same path that he has taken. I was able to realize the dream from 1992 to 1993 when I worked as a doctor in a Community-Based Health Program in Occidental Mindoro.

When I entered AKAP in 1999, AKAP’s founder and president, Dr Mita Pardo De Tavera would always have fond memories of the very first doctor that she invited to work for AKAP, Dr Jimmy Galvez Tan. Her stories about the work of and working with Jimmy were both an inspiration and a huge learning experience. I was motivated in my efforts knowing that I was now in the same position as my role model from my years in medical school.

I have worked with Jimmy as a co-faculty member in the Section of Community Medicine of the Department of Family & Community Medicine of the UP College of Medicine & Philippine General Hospital. He has always been a mentor and a guide and his brilliance as a facilitator has always been a source of learning on the guidelines in communication skills.

I have also been asked by Jimmy to join some of his community health & development programs and projects especially with Health Futures. He has given me the chance to perform service work towards community development while always guiding me. Working with Jimmy ahs always been a two-fold experience, service and learning.

Jimmy and I are members of a group of UPCM faculty who organize, facilitate and lecture on global health courses, special courses on community health & development and continuing medical education courses. I always request for Jimmy’s persona; guidance when I am called upon to be the leader of the organizing committee in any of these aforementioned courses.

Among his many papers and articles, Jimmy’s paper entitled “Health In The Hands of the People” has always been a source of my guiding principles in my work and I have used it countless times in my mentoring work with students since I started to be a faculty of Community Medicine in 1998.

Of the numerous things that I have learned from Jimmy through his actions and decisions, it is the skill of using empowering processes that I am most grateful for. Jimmy inspired me to truly believe in the capability of communities and individuals to analyze their situation and to develop effective approaches based on their analysis. Jimmy has shown me that a community who has empowered itself can strive towards its own development. Jimmy has been my mentor on providing an enabling mechanism for a people and for a community to empower itself towards the fulfilment of their rights and towards genuine health and development.

It has been an honor to have been mentored and to have served, researched and learned with Dr Jimmy Galvez Tan.

Dr Anthony GH Cordero
UP College of Medicine, Class of 1992
Medical Consultant, AKAP (Alay Kapwa Kilusang Pangkalusugan)
Board of Trustees, Community Medicine Development Foundation
Associate Professor, UP Manila (CM-Dept of Family & Community Medicine)
Head, UPCM Committee on the Return Service Obligation
Former Director, UP Manila Center for Gender and Women Studies (2006-2011)
October 2012 / Manila