Hi, it’s Amy stepping in for Ann who is on vacation, but since I am the one who met our Friday origin story I am completely honoured to be introducing you to Mina V. Esguerra and her class of Philippine authors.
Mina spoke at the Toronto Northern Hearts Conference about seeing a gap in own stories in the Philippines. She started a group to write romance books that represent themselves in stories and covers. They produce their own amazing stories and I was so impressed with the amazing work they are doing and the stellar stories they are producing.
Including Medical Romance!
I knew I had to reach out to Mina and she interviewed her authors who write medicals. I do hope you check out these authors amazing books. Thank you to Mina V. Esguerra, Celestine Trinidad, Suzette de Borja, Angeli E. Dumatol and EK Gonzales.
It’s time for medical romance in the Philippines, an interview with doctor-authors Celestine Trinidad, Suzette de Borja, Angeli E. Dumatol, and EK Gonzales
It’s time for medical romance in the Philippines, an interview with doctor-authors Celestine Trinidad, Suzette de Borja, Angeli E. Dumatol, and EK Gonzales
by Mina V. Esguerra
Hello, everyone! My name is Mina V. Esguerra, romance author and founder of the #RomanceClass community. We are Filipino authors of romance in English and we’ve been writing and publishing books since 2013. Our community has helped over 80 Filipino authors write and publish since then, and most of us aren’t full-time romance authors. It’s been fun seeing how people who join the community as readers and authors find each other because of a common background or profession, and this year several of our authors (who also happen to be doctors) released their first medical romance anthology together. It’s called The Doctor Is In Love and it’s available worldwide on Amazon and all other retailers.

I talked to the anthology’s authors and asked them about their work in the medical field and romance writing!
Mina: Hello, docs! Please introduce yourself, and I hope you can mention something about your work (as a doctor and as an author).
EK: I’m EK (English pronouns they/them). I support the #romanceclass community. This is my first story under #romanceclass. I’m usually a speculative fiction writer, and an advocate for Filipino comics. My specialization is Family Medicine (sometimes called General Practice).
Angeli: I’m Angeli, and I’m currently a nuclear medicine physician-in-training. I write YA and NA romance, and my work includes Heartstruck (RomanceClassFlicker #1), How to Write a Novel in 7 Days, and a couple of stories included in anthologies.
Suzette: Hi. I’m Suzette de Borja. I’m a dermatologist by training but I also love to write. I’ve written several romance novellas and short stories.
Celestine: Hi! I’m Celestine. My specialty as a doctor is Pathology, so I don’t deal directly with patients anymore. I work mostly in the laboratory, reading biopsies, optimizing laboratory tests, and on occasion, performing autopsies.
My first contemporary romance novella is “Ghost of a Feeling”, which is also technically a medical romance, as the main character of the story is a fourth year medical student, and deals with mental health issues that medical students and doctors face. I have also written short stories set within the same universe of this novella, which are included in anthologies (Make My Wish Come True, 12 Months of Romance, 24 Reasons to Love anthology), as well as an episode of the romanceclass web series, Hello Ever After. Currently I’m working on a young adult romance novella for the Flicker series, “Hearts and Sciences”, which is, this time, connected to my story in the The Doctor Is In Love anthology.
I’ve also written other stories in other genres, including fantasy, science fiction, crime, and children’s fiction.
Mina: As a romance reader I love that you released a medical romance anthology—it feels like we finally get to see this with characters like us. How did you put this together and why?
EK: It’s been both a dream among the #romanceclass members who are doctors, and something of a wish from the rest of the community. Prior to this anthology doctor characters have already appeared in other general anthologies and some novels (ie Celestine Trinidad’s Ghost of a Feeling).
Angeli: …Who better to write stories about doctors than actual doctors? It was an opportunity for us to feature the realities that come with our profession while at the same time, providing the hope and kilig and happy that we’ve all come to love about romance stories.
Suzette: …It would be a great idea to collaborate on a medical themed romance from people who are from that same field.
Celestine: While there are already a number of medical romances in the market, we still wanted to read more, hehe — and we personally wanted more stories set here in the Philippines…Since we were in the field ourselves, we had firsthand knowledge of the practice of medicine and the life of a doctor, and how romance can actually happen for us, given the constraints (busy schedules, the constant emergencies, etc), and also aware of possible ethical issues that may arise from these relationships.
Mina: I’ve read (and watched) medical romance but usually US books or foreign series…How is practicing medicine different in the Philippines and how would that affect romance fiction that involves it?
EK: The Philippines is still a bit slow in implementing the 8- or 12- hour ideal duty hours, and thus we still have the pre (8 hours) -duty (24 hours) -post/from (4 or 8 hours after duty) system. This causes the ‘everybody is tired’ that most commenters have already noted about the anthology. 😀
Also, most medical shows from the USA, Japan, and South Korea show an ideal medical world (even if I am very aware of the problems that also hound America’s health system). Medical training and being a practicing doctor in the Philippines means you have to daily deal with poverty and inequality. Besides the fact that the Philippines uses the American health insurance and health card systems, with all the many capitalist problems with it, there is also dealing with medical problems using very limited resources and out-of-pocket payments by the very poor and working class who could not afford proper medical care. All this affects the heart and soul of each doctor.
Angeli: Medical training in the Philippines entails a 4-year pre-med education, plus another 4-years in medical school proper, followed by a post-graduate internship year before finally being able to take the licensing exams. Passers are then able already to practice as general practitioners, but there is an option to pursue more specialized training through residency and eventually fellowship programs. So, it’s really not uncommon for medical students in their early 20s to still be dependent on their parents for the duration of that long education, especially in a country like the Philippines, where family is essentially part of culture. So I’d say that family would still very much affect any medical fiction set in the country.
Also, the Philippine healthcare system is still mostly dependent on out-of-pocket expenses of patients. While there is a national health care insurance system in place as well as health plans provided for those in the private working sector, the coverage of these is often lacking – which is to say, patients would still need to shell out additional costs. So these kinds of problems would no doubt pop up in stories regarding medical practice here in the country.
Suzette: Having practiced my profession in Manila, I can only draw from my experiences as a doctor here. Maybe readers with medical backgrounds from another place would be able to pick up if there are any differences in what I’ve written 🙂
Celestine: One way the practice of medicine is different in the Philippines is that doctors here tend to have multiple part-time jobs in more than one hospital/institution, unlike in other countries (like the US). On top of that, they are often part of the academe as faculty in medical school, too. This leads to doctors having to travel around a lot, sometimes to places outside of their own city, unlike in other countries where the salary they get from one place is enough to get by. This would affect romance fiction too because the schedule of doctors would be even more irregular compared to how it is portrayed in media outside of the Philippines. But I think it also leads to very interesting scenarios that can be great for romance, and would be unique to our setting, e.g. getting stuck in traffic while on the way to a referral, having to travel together to another town, etc.
Also, many places in the Philippines are still lacking in resources when it comes to healthcare, including equipment, supplies, and medicines. This also affects the setting of romance fiction, as many conflicts can arise from this difficulty, but also it makes it even sweeter, somehow, when you still get a HEA after all that?
Mina: Your anthology cover models are actual doctors! How did you find them and how did you ask them to be part of it?
Angeli: We were truly determined to find actual doctors to act as our models for the cover to add to the authenticity of the anthology! I’m friends with Biel [Faundo], who was my co-intern back in med school, and she actually modeled for one of my books before.
Celestine: When we were thinking of the cover for the anthology, we thought it would also be nice if we could have doctors on the cover, because we felt they could best represent our characters. It was fun too, actually how specific to the field our directions during the shoot were (“Look as happy as if your patient is finally going to be discharged!”, etc). Also, we knew a number of doctors who also had experience with modeling, so it would be a great way to feature them too. Alec Duñgo used to be one of the contestants for the reality show Pinoy Big Brother Teens. Biel Faundo has joined pageants before, and even finished at the top 10 in the Mutya ng Pilipinas pageant, which was amazing actually because even before I had known that, I had already decided that the main character for my story would have this exact same back story! So I said we really needed her on the cover too, and she agreed. Then we asked around for two more so each of our stories can also have a cover model. A friend of mine introduced us to Deanne Paglinawan, and Angeli’s mother introduced us to Carlo Castillo, thus completing the set!
Mina: Which parts of your story could really happen and which parts are total romantic fantasy?
EK: Medicine everywhere is one of the more conservative communities, and worldwide there are still concerns that medical personnel take a long time to understand SOGIE (sexual orientation and gender identity and expression). Add to that the already conservative and still religious culture of the country, it is therefore rather hard to have an open lesbian, gay, bisexual, or pansexual relationship in the Philippine medical world, and having a different gender identity (transgender, nonbinary, genderfluid, intersex) is still not fully accepted in many places.
It is still the dream that LGBTQIA+ medical professionals will be accepted without question, and not just because of their skill as a professional, but for themselves.
The circumstances that caused the ‘there is one bed’ [in EK’s story The Days of Rain and Flowers] is quite realistic, especially when the medical conference is held outside the capital. The hotels, inns, and transient houses around the area of the conference would fill up for the conference quickly, and sometimes online reservations get lost.
Angeli: For The Doctor is in Love, I wrote ‘First Cut’ which is a rivals-to-lovers story about two young doctors competing for a single neurosurgery residency training slot. The story focuses on pre-residency and all the hardships that come with it, which are very much a reality, and I’d like to think that finding love during that difficult time is a possibility, rather than an impossibility. Being subject to such stresses and getting through challenges together creates a special bond between individuals, so it’s definitely possible!
The suturing scene is maybe the most memorable part of my story, and although it is still best to do as such at a more sterile area like the hospital, we can actually do simple suturing procedures at home! It would not be surprising for doctors in cutting specialties to have surgical instruments available in their houses.
Suzette: All of them can really happen hahaha.
Celestine: In my story, a lot of things can really happen. Doctors do research too on top of clinical work. And yes, you can definitely fall in love with your research partner, haha.
Also, as some of us are given the chance to go abroad for further training, we do sometimes have to make a choice to leave or stay, given the many difficulties with the practice of medicine in our country.
Many people opt to leave. So I think what I did with my story is not a very common choice that is made, so maybe it can be said that part of it is fantasy? But…I still believe that this can still happen, even in real life.
The Doctor Is In Love is available on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B092T8454C
More books from the RomanceClass community listed here: romanceclassbooks.com
Thank you for coming here and sharing! If you want to find out more about these awesome authors please check the link above!