By Josephine Mata

The author, a physical therapist by profession, is from Quezon City. She graduated from University of the East Ramon Magsayay Memorial Center (UERMMMC) in 1996 where she later taught, from 2004 till 2009. After graduation she worked for three years as a clinician at Metropolitan Hospital, Manila. She then entered the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (FMMs) but left during the novitiate. She is a volunteer catechist in St Francis de Sales Parish, Beckley but sometimes attends Mass at Sacred Heart Parish, South Williamson, West Virginia, near where her brother lives and where the parish priest is a Filipino from Oriental Mindoro, Fr. Rey Landichio.

When patients get sick they are in their most vulnerable state. They are at the mercy of other human beings - mere mortals, limited but nonetheless gifted (or so they wish to think of themselves). I am talking about healthcare providers, doctors, nurses and allied healthcare professionals and the insurance companies.

I am a physical therapist (PT), a profession rooted in the caring services that enables persons to return to their functional, pre-morbid state. I am currently working in West Virginia, affiliated with a healthcare system the motto of which is to provide for the health needs of the people in the Appalachian region. I am thankful to have been ‘sent’ where I am now since I have always eluded the normal trend for PTs in the Philippines, which is to graduate from the grueling academic and clinical load, pass the Philippine and US board exams and of course work in the USA. It took me 14 years before I too trod this path, literally being dragged into it. This is because this was never the life I had envisioned for myself. But truly God knows best, so I let myself be guided to His will.

Being a physical therapist in the USA is a very fulfilling job: monetary wise as one is being paid more than adequately, and professionally one is able to fully execute one's theoretical and clinical knowledge as a physical therapist with referrals, and not just taking mere prescription orders from physiatrists in the Philippines.

A bonus for me is to be able to interact with patients, the majority of whom are elderly persons in nursing homes whose faces personify Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta's words: ‘the greatest poverty in the USA is loneliness’. The lolas and lolos I get to serve here literally break my heart as I remember how the elderly are being taken care of in the Philippines. I have even got into the habit of shaking an elderly patient's hand before donning gloves and beginning the treatment, making sure that the patient is free from contact with any possible infections, since prudence will always take precedence in the healthcare scenario. This is because I see the wonder of the warmth of a human touch in my profession, as the patient feels cared for and looked after.

As I see an array of depressed patients, elderly, frail persons at times left to themselves and living in nursing homes, and hard working coalminers whose bodies bear the marks of the hard labor of providing for the energy and economy of the region and perhaps even of the world. What keeps my heart from breaking are the times I can manage to sneak into a small room designated as an ecumenical chapel in the hospital lobby where a statue of Mother Mary, the one used by the Legion of Mary, surprisingly stands. Also there are times I can manage to be in silence before Jesus in front of the Blessed Sacrament bringing to Him all the people He asks me to serve and whom I bring back to His care. These moments of silence, praying the rosary and taking part in the Holy Mass whenever I can, sustain me, as there are times I feel the burden of the loneliness, weakness and frustration of my patients as well as my own personal struggles. God's grace alone prevents me from breaking down and enables me to continue to give of myself.

I am also fortunate enough to work with a group of people who truly care for the welfare of our patients who have got into our respective professions with the clear understanding that ‘It’s all about the good welfare of our patients’.

But I must admit there are good days and bad days in the healthcare professions and I just take one day at a time. I am thankful for the job and thankful for my prayers to be answered to do whatever, to go wherever and to be whenever God wants me to be. I want to think that I am a still a missionary . . . sent as a lay person, a physical therapist in the heart of USA mission territory. As a new saint said, ‘Better to be in a hole doing God's will than on top of a hill going against God's will’ – St Marie de Saint Just FMM, a missionary to China killed on 9 July 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion and canonized on 1 October 2000.

You may email Josephine at phine_mata@yahoo.com .