Rarely does one find a truly pioneering scientist among our people, and Dr. Enrique M. Ostrea, Jr. makes every Filipino’s heart swell with pride.

     This highly accomplished physician has been voted five times as one of the 500 “Best Doctors in America”, and has been a member of nine major professional societies including the prestigious American Academy of Pediatrics and American Pediatric Society. In the last 15 years, he has published 62 original observations in different medical journals and 73 medical abstracts, and delivered 175 lectures in the United States and elsewhere. He has received four outstanding alumni awards from his alma mater, the University of the Philippines, and has been a recipient of 19 research grants from various state and federal agencies.

     Dr. Ostrea graduated cum laude and class valedictorian from the University of the Philippines College of Medicine. For 30 years, he was Chief of the Hutzel Hospital’s Department of Pediatrics in Detroit, Michigan and up to now continues to be the Director of Hutzel’s University Service Nurseries while concurrently holding a full-tenured professorship at Wayne State University’s Department of Pediatrics.

     A brilliant researcher and an expert clinician, one of Dr. Ostrea’s foremost contribution to the field of pediatrics and neonatology is his invention of the meconium drug testing kit (Mectest), which is now considered a standard clinical test for illicit drug exposure in newborns, and the first of its kind to be approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration. In layman’s terms, Dr. Ostrea’s invention provides a way by which an infant’s meconium (first stool after birth) can be analyzed so that the infant’s exposure to drugs and alcohol while in the mother’s womb may be determined. The invention earned for him and Wayne State two patents from the US Patent Office.

     A few years later, Dr. Ostrea expanded his research to study fetal exposure to environmental toxins. This highly innovative research has earned for him million dollar grants from the US National Institute of Health and the National Center for Environmental Research, and has resulted in the infusion of over $1 million in research monies to the Philippines.

     Recently, Dr. Ostrea also invented a low-cost ventilator (PhilVent) for use by sick, premature infants in intensive care nurseries in the Philippines. The invention resulted from his observation of the plight of many newborn nurseries in the Philippines which use the patient’s watcher or “bantay” as substitute for ventilators due to high cost of such machines. Undoubtedly, this invention will positively affect the delivery of vital care for sick and premature infants throughout the Philippines.

     As if these achievements were not impressive enough, Dr. Ostrea is also an accomplished pianist, singer, conductor, and composer. Under his leadership as conductor and arranger, the Philippine Medical Association of Michigan Choir performed in the US premiere of the late great composer Lucio San Pedro’s Filipino Mass. The choir has performed in various cities in the United States and Canada, and in Rome at the canonization of Lorenzo Ruiz, the first Filipino saint.

     While he is definitely one Filipino who has accomplished so much, Dr. Ostrea continues to look beyond what he has accomplished and do whatever he can to give back to his country and community. He spends as much time in the Philippines, sharing his medical expertise and experience with health care students and professionals in various schools and hospitals, and at the University of the Philippines where he earned his medical degree with high honors.

     In conferring the Pamana ng Pilipino Award to Dr. Enrique M. Ostrea, Jr., the President recognizes his outstanding and pioneering achievements in the field of pediatrics and neonatology, and his lifetime work in applying scientific knowledge to improving the health and condition of the newly born.