When the COVID-19 pandemic broke, the world was stunned.  Our lives ceased to be how it used to be. The slowness of our daily living brought confusion, discomfort, and even fear to many.  We missed the warmth of human contact.  We missed our weekend family dinners, after-work get together with friends, going to the gym, even seeing patients in the clinic.  We missed basking in the energy that only human physical presence can give.  We missed our face to face conversations.  We missed being together in our conferences and conventions.

But as it is by design that our lives are etched by both setbacks and victories, we also had our beautiful learnings during this experience.  Because, by God’s grace we are equipped with the ability to rewire our brain’s function, we learned how to cook, bake ube and cheese pan de sal, make Dalgona coffee.

I learned how to buy from the wet market.  Skill unlocked.

We have also been gifted by technology that appeared to have been unscathed by the pandemic by its high speed advancement.  Through innovations, we learned to set our meetings, be it for the most trivial and mundane friendly greetings, to the most important dialogues. We were able to continue our scholarly exchanges by setting up our virtual activities in the College, we “saw” each other even just through the  computer’s monitor.  We successfully shifted to the digital platforms and used this to disseminate information to our peers as well as to our patients.

And the virtual world has proven to be a mighty avenue for intellectual discourse.  In our hands is the most efficient way of updating one another.  Through the digital realm, communication continued.

Thus, the PCEDM publication also needed to be in tune with the current speed of communication.  We opted to fully digitalize the Endocrine Updates to keep up with the dynamism of our current lifestyle.  We get news from around the world about recent trials and scientific milestones and the updates just keep coming.  We simply need to be in full stride.

For this year’s Endocrine Updates, we aim to give you hot topics, one topic each news blast so as to give you time to savor each article.  Our hard-working publication staff will continuously be on the look out for fresh and interesting topics to give you.  You won’t have to wait for several months to get an issue of the magazine just to read about the latest in our field.

Our Managing Editor, Dr. Maria Jocelyn “Jing” Isidro-Capuli, has the challenging role of planning, assigning topics, making sure all operations of the Endocrine Update works seamlessly.  Dr. Mia C. Fojas, our Scientific Editor, will make sure that nobody is left behind on what is the latest scientific breakthrough.  Expect to be delighted in reading about the lighter side of Medicine by the topics that will be developed by our Features Editor, Dr. Anabelle Marie “Mabs” M. Lat.  The Updates will also be re-branded with its new look, designed by the talented Dr. Carmen Carina “Kina” Cabrera.  We also have articulate contributing writers from our 11 training institutions who will be the hidden treasures of the success of the Endocrine Updates.

Together with our Assistant Editor-in-chief, Dr. Monica Therese “Mitos” Cating-Cabral, I have no doubt that our team will deliver the objectives of the Endocrine Updates.

And together, we shall continue to evolve.

Aurora Gatan Macaballug, MD, FPCP, FPCEDM
Endocrine Updates Editor-in-Chief