For nearly 3 decades, visitors to Princeton Community Hospital in West Virginia would likely hear a page for “Dr. Dad” or “Dr. Gene” summoning either Generoso Duremdes, MD, FACS, or his son, Gene Duremdes, MD, FACS, to care for a patient or, perhaps, participate in a meeting.
“These nicknames are terms of endearment,” said the junior Dr. Duremdes. “And I think they show the loyalty, love, and support that we’ve had all these years from our community and the people at our hospital.”
The father-son duo recently answered a different kind of call to action.
Together with their spouses—Janelle Duremdes, MD, and Mary Duremdes, RN—they are sponsoring the Duremdes Family Travel Award, an ACS fund that provides international physicians, specifically Filipino surgeons, with the opportunity to attend and participate in the annual Clinical Congress.
“My parents came from a very rural area in the Philippines, and they want to provide an opportunity for some of the young surgeons—who might not have the resources to make it to Clinical Congress—to be exposed to the latest research and trends in surgery,” explained Dr. Gene Duremdes.
“Karen Hope A. Dalmacio, MD, FACS, the inaugural recipient of the award, sent us this short letter describing her journey to Clinical Congress as not only a highlight of her career as a surgeon, gaining knowledge by attending the lectures, but also as something that helped her personally fight her own breast cancer,” said the senior Dr. Duremdes. “Dr. Dalmacio continued her practice as a surgeon and became an inspiration, not only to her colleagues, but also to her patients.”
During the meeting, Dr. Dalmacio was able to see her mentor, ACS Past-President Patricia J. Numann, MD, FACS, honored with the ACS Lifetime Achievement Award. Their interactions during Clinical Congress were especially compelling as Dr. Numann was the spark that inspired the Duremdes family to create this traveling fellowship.
“When I was serving as the President of the ACS West Virginia Chapter in 2013—which was actually 20 years after dad served in that same position—we had the privilege of having Dr. Numann as the representative from the College to the chapter,” explained Dr. Gene Duremdes. “While we were sharing a wonderful evening of dinner and fellowship, we found out that Dr. Numann had spent a lot of time in the Philippines and that she loved her visits there. My parents were touched by her fondness for their birthplace and how she spoke about the need for the College to reach out to the international surgical community and share the wealth of information and resources that the ACS has to offer. So, from that brief encounter was born the idea of the traveling fellowship—it literally began just as a conversation during dinner.”
In the ACS Foundation 2019 Annual Report, Dr. Dalmacio described her experience observing Dr. Numann receive the College’s Lifetime Achievement Award: "It was through that recognition that I was inspired by her work, her persistence as a physician, her strength as a female surgeon, and, above all, her excellence. The experience of witnessing such a momentous event for her was more than enough to inspire me to strive more in doing my part as a member of my surgical community.”
Following Dr. Dalmacio, the second recipient of the Duremdes Family Travel Award was Leah Ruth Failagutan Porras, MD, in 2020. Due to the pandemic, Dr. Porras’s scholarship was deferred to Clinical Congress 2023.
