Dr. Rodolfo Punzalan, Jr.

The People’s Doctor

By Val G. Abelgas

It is not difficult to understand why Dr. Rodolfo V. Punzalan Jr., concurrent president of the Association of Philippine Physicians in America (APPA), the Philippine Medical Association of Southern California (PMASC), and the MCU Medical Alumni Association (Southern California chapter), has been deeply engaged in medical missions and other community services. Or why he even became a doctor.

As a young boy growing up in Sinait, Ilocos Sur, Punzalan would accompany his mother to the doctor everytime (which was often, he says) she was sick. In the clinic, he would see people suffering from various ailments, and he felt very sorry for them. He knew then he wanted to be a doctor.

The young Punzalan also accompanied his aunt, who was a doctor, during her numerous house calls to patients. As he saw more sufferings brought by various ailments, his dream to become a doctor became a resolve. He would be a doctor and help all these poor people.

His compassion for the sick and the poor was inspired by a cousin, who was brought up by his doctor-aunt and who became a doctor himself. The cousin brought him along to the hospital and the young Punzalan was awed at how dedicated the doctor worked. His cousin, like his aunt, went house to house in Sinait to treat poor patients, with Punzalan assisting him. Most of the patients they visited didn’t have money, but they treated them just the same.

When he was old enough, the young Punzalan went to Manila to take up pre-med at the Far Eastern University. After finishing his pre-med in 1960, Punzalan took up medicine proper at the Manila Central University (MCU) College of Medicine and graduated in 1965. He passed the medical board the same year.

After a one-year graduate rotating internship at the San Lazaro Hospital, he went back to Sinait in 1967 as a general practitioner. At first, he assisted a surgeon, but later that year, he set up his own clinic in nearby Badoc, Ilocos Norte. In his clinic and during house calls, Punzalan treated patients even though they had no money to pay him.

That same year, he met and married Angelita Ruiz Medina, who was a BS in Elementary Education graduate and studying law at the Northwestern College in Laoag city. The couple now have five grown-up sons: Anthony, Rodolfo Jr., Roderick, Gail Roy, and Justin.

In 1971, Punzalan decided to try his luck in the United States. His wife, Lita, and their then three sons followed the next year. He stayed in Los Angeles and worked as a respiratory therapist at the Sierra Memorial Hospital. He passed the ECFMG for foreign physicians in July 1972.

He applied for commission with the U.S. Navy and in June 1973 started his active duty training with the US Navy Medical Corps as lieutenant commander. His internship and training lasted two years, and he served as general medical officer until 1977 alternately at the Great Naval Hospital in Chicago, Illinois; at the Oakland Naval Hospital in Oakland, California; and at Camp Pendleton Naval Hospital in Oceanside, California.

In 1976, Punzalan passed the board for licensing. He undertook his family practice residency at the R.E. Thomason General Hospital, an affiliate of Texas Tech School of Medicine in El Paso, Texas. He graduated as chief senior resident in family practice. In 1979, he passed the diplomate board for family practice.

That same year, Punzalan started his private practice. He first established his clinic in Glendora, then moved to Baldwin Park, then to Los Angeles, and back to Baldwin Park, where he has held clinic since March 1991.

Many of his patients have been his patients for many years, and sometimes, they would go to him, saying that their insurance had expired or that they had lost their job, and he would treat them.

“As doctors, we have taken an oath to treat patients. And whether these patients have the ability to pay or not, I feel duty-bound to help them, the same way that my aunt and my cousin treated the poor people in our town,” Punzalan said.

In 1981, upon the request of the Ilocanians Association of Southern California, which was based in Delano, Punzalan opened a clinic in that farming town, where thousands of Filipino farm workers and their families, mostly Ilocanos, live. He would go there Friday and attend to about 80 patients until Sunday. During these weekend trips, he would also attend to a farm he had bought and go to cockfights, which were held inside plantations.

“I enjoyed my visits to Delano. I was able to treat many friends and old acquaintances and their families, and I was able to enjoy farm life and the sabongs, as well,” said Punzalan. He added that although his Delano trips were not financially rewarding since many of his patients were old friends, who didn’t have enough money for medical expenses, he enjoyed helping them and he enjoyed the break that farming and the cockfights gave him.

The weekly two- to two-and-a-half-hour drive to Delano, however, proved too tiring for Punzalan. He eventually closed down his Delano clinic in December 1991. He, however, still has his small farm and still visits Delano from time to time.

In 1983, Punzalan was appointed director of the emergency room of the San Gabriel Valley Community Hospital. He became part-owner of the hospital in 1986, and became its chairman and president from 1987 to 1989, and again from 1993 to 1997, when the hospital was sold to new owners.

Punzalan knows that his medical and community service should not be confined to the hospital or to his clinic. He is one of the most active physicians in civic and community service. Punzalan is concurrent president of the Association of Philippine Physicians in America (APPA), the Philippine Medical Association of Southern California (PMASC), and the MCU Medical Alumni Association (Southern California chapter).

Aside from these medical groups, Punzalan served as president of the Filipino-American Cultural Association of North San Diego (1976-77), president of the Filipino-American Association of El Paso (1978-80), adviser of Ilocanians Association of Southern California, and active member of the Bayanihan Lions Club, Laoagenian Association of California, and Sinaitican Association of California.

For his outstanding achievements and dedicated service to the community, Punzalan has received numerous awards, among them the Eagle Award of Excellence from the Manila-US Times, one of the 20 Most Outstanding Citizens in the United States and Canada, and an Achievement Award from the MCU.

Among the many civic-oriented activities in which he is involved, the medical missions undertaken by the medical groups give Punzalan the most fulfillment. Punzalan led medical missions in February this year to Bulacan and Ilocos Norte for the APPA. The medical missions were held as part of the activities for the APPA’s 6th joint congress with the Philippine Medical Association (PMA) in Manila. The Bulacan mission was conducted with the help of the Bulacan Medical Society and the Lions Club of Bulacan, while the Ilocos mission was in cooperation with Ilocos Norte Gov. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., Laoag Mayor Roger Farinas and the Pamulinawen Lions Club and Banawag Lions Club.

During the missions, the APPA doctors conducted surgeries, harelip operations, medical check-ups, and gave medication to people of various ages.

“It’s heartening to know that you are able to help people who need immediate medical attention. These people rarely get to see doctors, either because there are no doctors in their remote towns, or they simply cannot afford to pay doctors,” Punzalan said.

“These medical missions are really so gratifying. It makes me happy when I see patients, who come in using canes, and then leaving already walking on their own. And then when you come back after six months or one year, you see harelip patients that you operated on, and see them smiling proudly, it just makes you feel proud that somehow you have touched these people’s lives,” he added.

While the APPA doctors conduct medical missions, their wives, who comprise the APPA Auxiliary Group, conduct their own food and gift distribution mission.

The PMASC also conduct regular medical missions to the Philippines, but in addition, they also hold medical missions for Filipinos in local communities who need medical help through the PMASC community outreach program.

“We coordinate with the local Filipino-American organizations in a particular community and offer free medical consultation, check-up, and treatment, mostly to elderly people,” Punzalan said. These services include stroke prevention check-up, diabetic check-up, prostate check-up, blood pressure, and many others.

This year, PMASC conducted medical missions at the Rossmore Elementary School in Los Angeles, and in San Pedro.

All three organizations that Punzalan heads have scholarship and continuing medical education programs. In addition, MCU Medical Alumni Association has donated medical equipment to the MCU Hospital, and has funded the improvement of the hospital’s operating room to approximate operating room standards in America.

During Punzalan’s term at the APPA, which ends next month, he sought to institute organizational changes to make the election process more democratic. He also moved to improve the organization’s financial resources, and to increase membership benefits. For its outreach programs, Punzalan moved to improve medical missions and scholarship programs, donate books, journals and teaching tools, and establish professorial chairs in various medical schools in the Philippines, institutionalize the “Adopt a Hospital” program, the “Medical Aid to Rural Indigent Areas (MARIA) program, and the Specialists to Join Urban Areas in Need (S. JUAN); and to realize the construction of a multi-purpose building.

Punzalan hopes to help realize all these visions for APPA even after his term by becoming an adviser to long-time friend and associate Dr. Amable Aguiluz Jr., who will take over as APPA president in August.

“All these activities have greatly decreased my time for my medical practice, but I have no regrets. They have been very gratifying, and give me a sense of pride in my profession,” Punzalan said.

Dr. Rodolfo V. Punzalan has come a long way from his regular visits to the doctor with his ailing mother in Sinait, and from his house calls to patients with his aunt and cousin in Ilocos Sur. But the civic and generous spirit that those visits instilled in him remain deep in his heart. Dr. Punzalan, by all standards, has accomplished what he had set out in life.