Interview With Dr. Amelia Jacang

Doctor Amelia Jacang has been a pediatrician for over twenty years. She enjoys her job helping infants, children and adolescents get better from their sicknesses. She loves watching her patients grow up and mature into the young adults they will become one day, and tending to her former patient’s children.

I arrived at 1712 Liliha Street at around 2:30 p.m. and waited in the waiting room for about an hour until there were no patients left. As I was waiting, I watched all the people come and go. There were some infants, children and very few teenagers waiting to be seen. The children would just associate with each other and play around whether their sick or not. The teenagers would just hang around in their own little bubble and look like they didn’t want to be there at the moment. It was kind of funny because they looked so awkward and they wouldn’t talk or anything.

It was finally my turn to meet Doctor Jacang at around 3:40 p.m. and I felt as nervous as ever. Sure, she’s my pediatrician and all, but this was kind of awkward for me (and probably for her too) because it just felt weird talking to her when something wasn’t wrong with me or when I wouldn’t get a shot.

Well, despite the awkwardness, here are some questions I asked her about her job being a pediatrician:

At what age can you become a pediatrician?

"The earliest age you can become a pediatrician is twenty-nine (29) years old. But since I studied in the Philippines, I became a pediatrician at twenty-one (21) years old. The years to become a doctor are different from the Philippines and here [the U.S]."

What degree do you need to become a pediatrician?

"Well, you need to finish, of course, under graduate college, then more college. I’ll say you need a Medical Degree, but you need to actually undergo more training because you’re specializing in pediatrics."

How are pediatricians different from doctors [that help all ages]?

"Us pediatricians are different from the regular doctors because we only take care of those kids from birth to the early adulthood, but I only care for them from birth to eighteen (18) years of age. And when you’re a pediatrician, you get to watch you clients grow up and you can be invited to their birthdays and weddings, big events like that because your actually taking part of their life, whereas the regular doctors only see you once, then whoop, bye bye. The regular doctors aren’t as involved with their clients’ life and they won’t see each other as much."

How long do you need to go to school to become a pediatrician?

"As I was saying before, you need to finish your under grad years and then more college to get the Medical Degree, so that’s… Twelve (12) years of school as a kid/teenager, eight (8) years or college, and three (3) years of residency and training, so that’s about twenty-three (23) years of school in all at the least."

What are good college’s to go to if you want to become a pediatrician?

"Well, its not so much about the college’s but more about where you volunteer at hospitals. For example, if your studying to become a pediatrician here in Hawaii, you should volunteer at Kapiolani Medical Center and maybe even Queen’s hospital, I’m not so sure about Queen’s, but I know Kapiolani has a good volunteering program, but you have to be at least sixteen (16) years old and you have to come weekly for however long you signed up."