Seeing Wellness in a New Light: The Medical City’s Wellness and Aesthetics Institute Is a Gateway to a Healthy and Sustainable Lifestyle

For some people, wellness is about making sure that their diet is tailored to the nutrition that their body specifically needs. For others, it’s about forging that mind-body connection. Others define it as keeping their skin glowing and in perfect shape. And for others still, it’s all about keeping themselves free from disease and risky health conditions. In today’s world, wellness means many different things to different people, but what it is not is a trend. Wellness is no longer merely a popular buzzword, but rather, a blueprint by which people live their lives.

A new definition of wellness at the Allure Philippines Wellness Week

This is exactly what was discussed on Health Watch Day during the Allure Philippines Wellness Week, held in the Wellness and Aesthetics Institute of The Medical City. To a rapt audience that included medical professionals, celebrities, and wellness enthusiasts, Allure Philippines editor in chief Rissa Mananquil Trillo opened the program by explaining that wellness goes beyond how we look on the outside, but also encapsulates how we feel, how we take care of ourselves, and ultimately, how we safeguard our future. “Health,” she clarifies, “is the foundation of every other aspect of beauty and wellness,” a statement which made Allure Philippines’ partnership with The Medical City all the more meaningful.

Courtesy of The Medical City

Tucked away on the sixth floor of The Medical City in Ortigas is the Wellness and Aesthetics Institute, a secluded sanctuary where one’s wellness is taken seriously—in all aspects. The Institute offers a myriad of services, including comprehensive health screenings tailored for males, females, children, and older patients, clinics for both dermatology and aesthetic surgery, diet and nutrition services, mind and body offerings such as yoga, sound bathing, music therapy, and acupuncture, and a wealth of diagnostic tests to determine the state of your health.

The latest innovations to future-proof your health

One of these tests, the SPOT-MAS test—or screening for the presence of a tumor by multi-omic and size—can detect ten kinds of cancer in your blood through a single blood test. The SPOT-MAS test, the first of its kind being run in-house in a Philippine hospital in a dedicated laboratory, screens for DNA fragments—or DNA tumor markers—in your blood, for breast, lung, colon, stomach, liver, pancreas, ovaries, uterus, head and neck, and esophagus cancers. An upgraded version of the test, the SPOT-MAS 360, screens additionally for 15 hereditary cancers and 13 hereditary cardiovascular diseases.

The test can detect cancer even if the patient has no symptoms. “We recommend that patients aged 40 and above, who have unhealthy lifestyle habits, like smoking, drinking, or who are sedentary or on the heavier side, or those who have a family history of cancer take the test,” explains Christian Flores, MD, director of the Wellness and Aesthetics Institute.

A holistic perspective

It’s a test that promotes early detection of a very serious disease, but at the Wellness and Aesthetics Institute, any sort of diagnosis goes hand in hand with lifestyle management programs and other such initiatives. It’s an approach to wellness that is, to put it simply, holistic—and it’s an approach that is evident in each service, each recommendation, and every nook and cranny of the Institute.

“When you’re in the medical field, you’re usually more focused on the physical, on the body,” Dr. Flores shares during the panel discussion with actress Bianca Umali and beauty queen Nicole Cordoves during Health Watch Day. “But,” he continues, “from our perspective, true wellness is really holistic. It has a connection with your mental health, and it addresses everything about the person’s biological health and every factor that affects it—nutrition, physical activity, sleep, how one adapts to stress, etc.”

Umali also chimes in by equating wellness with “wholeness.” “Wellness doesn’t just mean physical healing. Wellness means that you are whole, having a healthy body, having a peace of mind, and also having the confidence to be in your own skin,” she shares. 

As for Cordoves, she shares that she saw wellness as an “everyday responsibility,” especially since we tend to take our bodies for granted and work them to the limit. “True wellness,” she says, “is really being able to ask yourself, ‘Paano ko babawi sa’yo this time?’”

The Wellness and Aesthetics Institute’s approach, Dr. Flores explains, centers on prevention and early detection, and on guiding patients towards a sustainable and healthy lifestyle, which is why the SPOT-MAS test is recommended for patients who have no cancer symptoms, but have what Dr. Flores calls “lifestyle risk factors.” “A lot of the chronic diseases that ail the Filipino are lifestyle-related,” Dr. Flores shares. “We try to take note of these lifestyle risk factors, and try to intervene through lifestyle management programs, health coaching, and the like.” What the Institute forges with patients, Dr. Flores explains, is a therapeutic relationship. “From an annual check-up, we really move into regular interaction with our patients. We keep tabs on their health, and remind them of what they have to do to achieve their own wellness.”

A blueprint for a whole life

There are, indeed, many definitions of wellness today, and many forms its practice can take. It can be nutrition and diet, physical activity, mind and body care, skin care and aesthetics, or careful monitoring of health risks through screenings. At the Institute, all of these forms of care are available—whether they are diagnostic, therapeutic, or rehabilitative. At the Wellness and Aesthetics Institute, wellness doesn’t mean just one thing. Wellness at the Institute means many things—it is holistic, proactive, and personalized, and it certainly lays out an impeccable blueprint for a healthy, happy, and whole life.

For more information on SPOT-MAS and the services offered at the Wellness and Aesthetics Institute, visit www.themedicalcity.com.