Intellectual jam

Brain Drain is defined by the Houghton Mifflin Company as “the departure of educated or talented persons for better pay or jobs”. Elsewhere, brain drain has been one of the major concerns faced by our country nowadays.

Senator Ralph Recto described this observable fact like so: "The country needs 10,000 new doctors by 2010 to satisfy the current shortage. Between 1,000 and 2,000 of these doctors would work overseas not as physicians but as nurses, to the detriment of millions of ailing Filipinos who need medical attention."

Clearly, the demand for doctors in our society is getting a large amount of increase each year. However, most of the educated doctors opt to relinquish their area of expertise for the sake of getting a higher pay in other countries as nurses. As a result, since there are very little skilled and trained doctors in our country, Filipinos who need good medical attention are not well taken cared of.

We cannot blame them regardless of the detriments caused by such occurrence. We cannot deny the fact that there are more opportunities given abroad that will allow them to gain a better lifestyle for their own families.

There is no easy way to combat this rapidly increasing situation. The damage of the society and the relationship between government and the masses has extremely affected a lot of major aspects concerning work and employment. Unless the government does something about this to regain the trust of Filipino doctors, nurses, or the like, this is going to keep on. Something must be done, yes, but while trying to figure it out, means of survival is necessary to progress in life – even if it means “brain draining” oneself.