Teacher, leader, and healer: What it means to be a doctor in this pandemic

Known for being the hardest working person in the room without ever needing the spotlight, University Physician Dr Sio Marquez is taking on the greatest role of his life—and shares why we all have our own role to play in fighting this pandemic.

After almost 12 years of being Program Director of the Health Sciences program in the Loyola Schools, Dr Norman Dennis Marquez, more affectionately known as “Doc Sio,” was ready to kick back his heels and lay low in late 2019. However, fate, in the guise of top Ateneo administration officials, had other plans for him. “Not so fast,” they said. In the last quarter of 2019, he was appointed as University Physician mandated to develop and cascade all occupational health programs to all Ateneo campuses, in keeping with the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Standards of the Bureau of Working Conditions of the Department of Labor and Employment.

Soon after, the pandemic struck. Yet, it seems like he was being prepared for this pivotal role all his life. At an early age, Doc Sio already knew that he wanted to be a doctor. “When I was four or five years old, my mother took me to Luneta. When we were in front of the Rizal Monument, I was amazed by the statue of Dr Jose Rizal. I asked my mother, ‘Who’s that?’ She started talking about Rizal and his life. I immediately knew that I wanted to become like him,” he says.

The long road to being a doctor started in his elementary days in Sto Niño Elementary School. Being one of the top students under Tulong Dunong, the tutoring program of Ateneo High School, he was given a chance to apply for a slot in Ateneo High School. However, even after graduating as valedictorian of his batch, he was unsure about which high school to choose. Doc Sio recalls that on the day he confirmed for UP Integrated School, he got a call from Ateneo. “Not so fast,” Ateneo said. A full scholarship grant offer from Ateneo High School would shepherd him to the blue and white.

When the time came for him to choose which college to go to, it was déjà vu. He was already registered in University of the Philippines Diliman, but once again, Ateneo said “not so fast.” Ateneo granted him another scholarship offer for his college education and his journey on the hill continued.

After college graduation, he went to UERMMMC College of Medicine to become a full-fledged doctor. And yet, even after that, Ateneo still beckoned to him. Instead of starting his practice in a hospital, he planned on teaching part time while practicing in a clinic close to the community. However, a phone call from Ateneo changed all that. A slot had opened up for him in the Biology Department for the coming semester.

A semester turned into a school year, and a school year turned into many. In 2020, he was recognized for 25 years of service to Ateneo in the University Service Awards. Now, armed with decades of experience of being a doctor and a teacher, Doc Sio faces the biggest challenge of his career—that of guiding the Ateneo community through this pandemic.

“As the University Physician, my primary concern and short-term goals are to work with the different offices in minimizing and mitigating the impact of COVID-19, even as we prepare for the return to face-to-face classes and more on-site work in the future,” he says. Doc Sio reiterates that combatting this pandemic will take an interdisciplinary approach: “Preparations for structural and engineering measures and policy recommendations have been initiated, but better communication with the different stakeholders is the challenge.”

“Overcoming this pandemic will entail not just medical intervention. It takes an interplay of many other things. We are looking at information and policies, governance, relationship building, networking, technology, science, vaccination,” he adds. “We are learning new things and unlearning other things. Labor laws and workplace policies are going to be reviewed and updated. We are moving forward, yet at the same time, we have to learn to be patient with others, and most especially with ourselves.”

Doc Sio has many dreams and plans for the Ateneo community as he endeavors to strengthen occupational safety and health programs. He hopes to integrate school health, mental health, and care for the environment and sustainability into a holistic care program for the university. Yet he knows that we have a long road ahead of us in overcoming this global health crisis, and as such, recognizes the weariness in all of us: “I understand that we are all feeling tired and frustrated thinking that we have followed all the protocols and observed all the safety precautions. The pandemic is testing not just individual resilience, but our—maybe even the world’s—commitment to care for one another in the face of seeming weaknesses and inadequacies.”

Thrust into the role of providing answers to a community desperately seeking answers to this pandemic, Doc Sio looks to why he wanted to be a doctor in the first place. “Aside from being a teacher, Rizal was a doctor of medicine but also a doctor of society—a doctor of human suffering. I wanted to emulate him to bring healing, not just in a physical sense but also in a psycho-social, even spiritual sense,” he shares. In a serendipitous light, the current situation requires this of Doc Sio.

Reflecting on the many twists and turns in his career, and reminiscent of the numerous times fate has led him back to Ateneo, Doc Sio looks forward with the courage and grit of his role model Dr Jose Rizal: “It’s still a long road ahead, but my faith tells me that hope is not fixed on a specific outcome but rests on my belief that a loving and merciful God works within our human capacities,” he says.

For the university’s comprehensive report on its response to the pandemic and to be updated on the latest advisories for the community, visit Ateneo’s COVID-19 Portal.