Father, Son work together to serve Veterans

Two doctors in the Salem VA Healthcare System began their journeys into medicine from very different starting points, but each believe their day is made all the better for being able to spend it with family.

Doctor Placido DeGuzman, is on his second stint with the Salem VA. The first lasted nearly a decade from 1977 to 1986 and the second began in 2007. But well before he set foot in Virginia, DeGuzman remembers running for cover in his rural home in the Philippines. His eldest son, Dr. Gerard DeGuzman was also born in the Philippines but came to the VA by way of a stint in the Navy.

“I remember a lot of stuff about hiding from the Japanese,” the more than 80-year-old Radiologist said. “We would watch dogfights and climb trees without realizing the danger of flying fragments and that kind of thing, you know. But we used to hide underneath a barn, and I remember when the Americans came, as a young boy, me and my friends would trade for K-rations with a bunch of bananas. When we opened up the K-ration box, everyone was looking for the Hershey’s chocolate, the liver spread, the Spam, Wrigley’s chewing gum and all these other goodies, you know. So, those are the things I remember very well. Very clearly.”

Although born and raised in the Philippines, the younger Dr. DeGuzman recalls that around the time he was 10 years old, his parents told him and his siblings that they would be moving to the United States, “When Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972, my father decided it was a good time to use the remaining two years on his visa and he returned to the United States.”

Following in his father’s footsteps, the elder DeGuzman graduated from the University of Santo Tomas School of Medicine in 1963, and then did a rotating internship from 1964-1967 followed by a two-year radiology residency at Brooklyn Jewish Hospital in New York.  In 1967, he and his family returned to the Philippines, and he set up a radiology clinic where he practiced for 5 years before deciding to return to the US for better opportunities for his children and to avoid the worsening political situation there. He was able to continue 2 years of training at his prior radiology program in New York and then had fellowship training for three years at Boston City Hospital before moving with his family to Salem in 1977 to start in his new position in the Salem VAMC.

While in medical school, Gerard, was born. “I say my kids were made in the Philippines but assembled in the U.S.,” he jokes, eliciting a dad-joke eye-roll from his son. 

“Coming from the Philippines to landing at JFK, it was so different than Angeles City,” (north of Manila and home to the former Clark Air Base) Gerard remembers of arriving in the United States. The Occupational Medicine Specialist is the oldest of four children who originally went to school as an art major before dropping out to join the Navy. 

“When I decided to join the service, I went first to the Air Force recruiter who, and I remember this so clearly, sat with his feet on the desk and showed no interest in me. So, I walked eight feet down the hall to the Navy recruiter who had me take the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery). I scored something like a 99 out of 100 and, based on those results, he told me I could choose any job in the Navy I wanted.”

After the Navy recruiter flaunted his new recruit’s ASVAB scores to his Air Force counterpart, Gerard decided on becoming an Electrician’s Mate and he served on two submarine tenders before leaving the Navy to attend community college before getting his bachelor’s in History from Mary Washington College.

“About the time I was finishing my degree I was considering what I wanted to do and realized my dad loved his job - he always found it interesting, and he enjoys it so much.”

With that in mind, Gerard spent another year and a half in school collecting science credits that would allow him to apply to medical school.

“I needed the extra time for chemistry and physics – a history major doesn’t need any of that. Of course, you don’t know while you’re doing all that if you’ll get accepted into medical school. When I applied there were like 3,000 applications for 94 slots, so it wasn’t uncompetitive.”

But he did get in and when he finished medical school, he continued at Carilion Health Systems to complete his training in family medicine.

“I decided in the middle of residency that I didn’t want to go into private practice and realized that the reason I had made it as far as I had was because of the experiences I had in the Navy fixing submarines. The discipline,” Gerard maintains, “and accountability and knowledge of being able to extend your boundaries… growing up I never thought I’d be a doctor. So, in the middle of training I decided that I’d give back to Uncle Sam. I kind of felt an obligation to serve again and so I signed up to be a medical officer in the Navy after completion of my residency.”

Back in the Navy, this time as an officer, Gerard’s first duty station was aboard the USS Nassau, a large deck amphibious ship that carried 2,000 Marines and 1,000 Sailors.

After serving for two years on a ship and three years in a naval medical clinic, he decided to apply for training in a second residency, this time in Occupational Medicine. “I got interested in Occupational Medicine because of my experiences serving as the ship’s medical officer for two years. The field of Occupational Medicine concentrates on work-related injuries and illness.”

“Burn pits,” his father adds.

“Yes, burn pits – that’s occupational.”

Finishing his new residency in 2005, he took a position in private practice before meeting a VA Compensation and Pension Examiner at church in 2013.

“She told me about her job and said I’d be great at it, and the first thing I thought was, wow, if I could get a job with the VA, I’d be working with Dad! So, I applied and later got the job, and it was related to what I was doing in Occupational Medicine.”

Today, Gerard is the Environmental Health Clinician for Salem VA HCS and he says being a Veteran helps him reach out to other Veterans to let them know about potential exposure issues. 

“We can check a health registry and get data on information on what Veterans may have been exposed to from Agent Orange to burn pits. There’s a confusion among many Veterans that you have to, for instance, get an Agent Orange Registry Examination before you can put in a claim for some Agent Orange related conditions. Those are two separate processes,” he explained. “If a Vietnam Veteran, for instance, has prostate cancer, has never been to the VA, has never put in a claim, but whose buddy has encouraged him to come here and get an Agent Orange Registry exam done, then I’d look through his records and say, ‘yeah, he’s got prostate cancer’, and I would inform him that he has a condition covered under the Agent Orange presumptive and could file a claim. I’d get them in touch with our Veteran Services Representative. The information from my exam can then be used by the VBA (Veterans Benefits Administration) to help adjudicate the claim. But the exam is not required for that Veteran to initiate or start a claim.”

With both father and son working together, the likelihood of either leaving the VA is something that crops up occasionally.

“Occupational Health is a small field and I still get recruited. But unless they want to give Dad a job too, we’ll just plan on staying here for a while.”

Placido smiles and nods to emphasize his agreement. “It’s exciting at this point. This is the best group of people I work with, and they keep me motivated – I cannot over-express myself about the group I work with. For me, my motivation and my work remove from my mind any thoughts of retiring.”

When the pandemic lessens and they are able, the two can often be found having lunch together in the canteen or at an outside picnic table.