Medical Missions
As a medical fraternity
composed of doctors, medical missions serve as an opportunity for brods to
share their expertise with the indigent communities throughout the
Philippines. These missions provide some medical care to areas which have
little access to it, or people who lack the financial capability to get
health care.
These medical/surgical missions provide services to the patients completely free of charge. The financial requirements of these missions are met through funds raised through the activities organized by the fraternity, and other sponsorships. Other missions are organized in cooperation with other organizations, and in these cases the Alpha Sigma Phi concentrates more on the manpower and medical know-how.
These
missions also gives the younger brods the exposure to the rudiments of
patient care. Here, the younger brods learn the basics, such as getting a
patient's history and physical examination, as they are taught and
supervised by the more senior brods or other senior members of the team. As
the younger brods get more experience, both from their medical studies as
well as knowledge acquired from different medical missions, they are given
more and more responsibilities, such as diagnosis and treatment. Our
physician brods directly supervise all aspects of patient care.
Some of our medical missions focus on procedures. Although cataract surgeries hosted by the fraternity were done solely by our ophthalmology brods, minor procedures are sometimes done by our younger brods. These are mostly small mass extractions, and our surgeon brods are always there to guide the procedure or take over if the need arises.
These missions are commonly organized along with our sisses from the Phi Alpha Sigma Sorority, and our younger sisses also learn in the same manner that our younger brods do. Most of our brods and sisses who are just in their first year of medical school, are already experts at doing some OPD procedures such as Papsmears and circumcision.
These missions are also
open to guests, mostly medical students who wish to gain knowledge and
experience in the same way our younger brods and sisses do.