Juan dela Cruz
Back was rendering duty as an emergency room officer in the hospital where I was taking up my residency, a victim of a vehicular accident was brought in by the driver of the car which accidentally hit him.
The victim was in very bad shape. He was unconscious so we could not ask him questions about his medical history or any of his allergies. We do not know who he was or even who to contact because we could not find any forms of identification in his pockets.
He was admitted as a “Juan dela Cruz” (John Doe for Americans, I believe).
It was a good thing that he was not allergic to any of the medications that were given to him at the ER. Imagine if we gave him penicillin and he turned out to be allergic! But our problem back then was that we didn’t have that sort of information on hand, no Personal Health Record, not even an identification card at all.
After the tragedy of the tsunami in Phuket which claimed the lives of my uncle and his 2 kids, I realize that you really cannot predict what might happen. A wallet or an ID can simply be washed away.
I found dog tags for my son. The ones similar to what military men wear on their person. I put his name and our contact numbers. I figured that (hopefully never!) if ever he gets lost, people can just contact us using the information on the dogtag.
But what I would actually love to get are one of those PHR’s with your whole digital health record stored in an elegant necklace so that they will be easily accessed by medical personnel.