RX A WORK OF HEART
By Cheska Rosas
Everyday, hundreds of patients walk through the doors of the Philippine General Hospital, hoping to find the treatment and care they cannot find anywhere else. Approximately 60,000 patients turn to the country’s largest public tertiary hospital, not only to cut costs but also to seek the help and expertise of some of the country’s best doctors. However, with the ever growing volume of patients the hospital receives coupled with the tight budget provided by the government, funds for medicines, labs, and equipment often run low. This leaves both patients and doctors at a tight spot where the lack of resources impedes one from getting the proper treatment.
Rx: A Work of HeART was born to try and alleviate this problem. Back in 2009, a medical resident, Dr. Geraldine Zamora Racaza, envisioned that “fashion can be charitable and charity can be fashionable.” As a volunteeer of the SAGIP Buhay Medical Foundation, Inc., she proposed an event that married two timeless art forms – medicine and fashion. Together with the Phi Lambda Delta Sorority, the premiere medical sorority of the UP College of Medicine, Rx: A Work of HeART came to life.
Rx: A Work of HeART is a benefit fashion show that calls on doctors to walk the runway wearing apparel bought from esteemed designers in Greenbelt 5 Filipino Zone. A percentage of the sale of each garnment is donated to the SAGIP Foundation for the benefit of the indigent patients of the Philippine General Hospital, Department of Medicine. For the past three years, the Sagip Buhay Medical Foundation, Inc. and the Phi Lambda Delta Sorority, have continued to partner together to show that service never goes out of fashion.
This year, Rx: A Work of HeART is back and it is bigger, better and bolder. SAGIP and Phi Lambda Delta team up once again to bring you: STRIDE, a benefit fashion show for the indigent patients of the Philippine General Hospital and those affected with HIV/AIDS. Now on its fourth year, more than 150 doctors and medical students are expected to walk down the runway at its new venue, Circuit Makati Events Ground. The show wikk be under the direction of Mr. Jackie Aquino, and 21 well renowned local designers who have pleged to the cause, such as Rajo Laurel and Mark Bumgarner. More than just a fashion show, STRIDE is a showcase of talent and spirit – husay at bayanihan. Every step down the runway in a native creation is an inch closer to a strengthened community through health.
