Dr. Vermen Verallo-Rowell On Her Storied Medical Career

It’s very, very difficult to believe that Vermen Verallo-Rowell, MD, FPDS, FDPS-PDS, FAAD, FASDP, HIM-ADA, is 87 years old.

For one thing, her skin is fabulous and glowing, as is wont for one of the foremost dermatologists in the country (Her advice: “I only use virgin coconut oil on my skin, and I think it’s quite soft for an 87-year-old’s.”) She’s also wearing heels—chunky, bright blue metallic ones that she pulls off with more aplomb than any the of the 20-somethings in the room (Her daughter CC chimes in: “We asked her to stop wearing heels, and the compromise was she only wears chunky, block heels, and not stilettos.”)

When you speak with her, she’s as sharp as a diamond-edged razor. She remembers the little facts from the hundreds of studies and journal articles she’s done. She answers questions about sensitive skin with intricate details, citing the expertise that’s hard-earned through all of her own research and studies.

But most of all, she is vibrant, brimming with life and energy, and a tangible hunger and excitement for what’s next. Even at age 87.

A career full of accolades—and full of purpose

Kim Santos

Dr. Verallo-Rowell is a world-renowned dermatologist, dermatopathologist, and photodermatologist—an active consultant whose patients fill the halls of her clinics, and whose research work numbers in the hundreds and includes pioneering research on the once-lowly coconut oil, elevating it from an oil only used for cooking, to a staple used for skin and overall health. She is also an educator, currently an adjunct research professor at the University of the Philippines National Institutes of Health (UP-NIH), an author whose book Skin In The Tropics addresses the unique concerns of brown and Asian skin including tropical UV exposure and hyperpigmentation, the co-founder and current chair of the Skin and Cancer Foundation, which aims to train dermatologists to service Filipinos in all corners of the country, and the Academic Skin Disease Research Foundation, and is an advisory council member and past chair of the dermatology department of Makati Medical Center.

Scrolling through a 31-page file of her recent achievements reveals more achievements than there is space for in this article. From her early years growing up in Cebu, where she learned how to play classical piano and, at the age of four, began attending the first grade class that her teacher-mother taught (“Because why leave the kid at home, right?”), to finishing high school at age 14 and deciding she didn’t want the path of piano teacher that her mother intended for her, to finishing her pre-med courses at age 21, and heading to the United States to begin dermatology training at the Cleveland Clinic Educational Foundation, Dr. Verallo-Rowell has proven that she has quite the habit of carving paths where there are none, and a firm grip on deciding which twists and turns she should take in life.

A lifetime of research—on the tree in her backyard

Take her extensive research about coconut oil, that has made the commonplace nut a staple in skin care the world over.

As Dr. Verallo-Rowell sat at the World Congress of Dermatology in Beijing in the late 1960s, listening to Dr. John Cabarra extoll the antibiotic virtues of coconut oil, she kept picturing the coconut tree that lived in her backyard back in the Philippines. She approached Dr. Cabarra after his talk, and asked him, “You’re talking about the coconut I have in my backyard?” He, in fact, was, and suggested that since he had already done the laboratory work on coconut oil’s monolaurin derivative, she go to work on the “clinical trials, since you do research anyway.” And she did.

Upon her return to the Philippines in the 1970s, Dr. Verallo-Rowell published two papers on the monolaurin Dr. Cabarra spoke of, and when mulling over its laboratory effect, thought to herself, There must be more to this coconut oil. And so began a lifetime of research on coconut oil—work that has earned her much acclaim worldwide, but that has its roots in a deep desire to prove her worth—and the Filipino’s worth—in an environment where she, oftentimes, felt so very other.

Pinoy pride—the driving force

“I was the only Filipino in Cleveland Clinic, barely five feet tall, with brown skin and a very Filipina-looking face,” Dr. Verallo-Rowell recalls. “You can just imagine that. I thought to myself, ‘What can I do to make them think I’m really not that bad?’” Her solution was to join a manuscript contest at a science journal in the United States. Dr. Verallo-Rowell wrote a paper on a patient’s unusual case, submitted it, and ended up winning first prize. “I said, ‘That’s what I’m going to do. I’ll do research to show these people I have the brains to study and learn new things.’” By the time she decided to come back to the Philippines, she had four works of research published in international journals. “I wanted to prove to them that the Filipino was not just short and nothing much to look at—that I was actually very smart.”

Coming back to the Philippines was, in itself, a decision driven by a deep sense of love and responsibility for her homeland. “There was always the temptation to stay [in the U.S.],” she admits. “They like Filipino doctors [there], because we’re more compassionate and sweet. But I just felt that I needed to bring back to the Philippines what I learned there.”

An archipelago of reasons to keep going

Today, decades after returning to the Philippines, Dr. Verallo-Rowell is still brimming with vivacity—a definite force to be reckoned with, and, it seems, impossible to stop. “We tried to ask her to slow down [at her age],” her daughter CC admits, “but we realized that she needs to keep at it.”

The love for knowledge and research, it seems, is one of several things that keep Dr. Verallo-Rowell going. But another thing is, perhaps, the plainspoken pride in what she does—and who she is. The woman who grew up in Cebu, and chose to return to the Philippines despite a multitude of opportunities abroad, the one who zeroed in on the properties of a nondescript tree behind her house, and the one who co-founded a foundation to bring access to medical care to far-flung corners of the archipelago, is, to put it simply, a champion of the Filipino people. And this is why, she says, she continues doing what she does.

“I always tell medical residents about to go abroad to be proud they’re Filipino,” she says. “[I remind them to] always speak up. Don’t just stay in the background. Speak up in conferences. Ask questions.” She turns pensive, yet remains passionate, as she explains, “Because us Filipinos, I think, because of our colonized mentality, colonized throughout history, we tend to not be very proud of ourselves. But we are so bright and so smart. Our brains are fantastic. So be proud of it and speak up and talk. And because I have international speaking engagements, I think that there is respect in the medical profession for us Filipinos.”