Soon enough, the chillout craze came to Manila. A number of popular resto bars in Makati like Wasabi and Tiananmen started doing chill out sessions with DJ Gerard Henson and the rest of couchLab manning the deck. Fast forward to 2019, I again found myself tripping to the beats of DJ Gerard Henson in one of Wildflour’s sunset sessions in Rockwell. I soon found out that he was a reputable surgeon and a scion of Dr. Jose Y. Fores, one of Makati Medical Center’s founders, which made things more interesting. As Sage would like to shine the spotlight on inspiring individuals, here’s our conversation with Doctor/DJ Gerard Henson… epitome of cool.

D: Can you share with us your educational background?

GH: I attended primary and secondary school in La Salle.

D: Greenhills.

GH: I'm old enough to say I attended grade school in La Salle, Taft… then I went to Greenhills for High School. Took pre-med in UE then to La Salle Cavite for Medicine. Makati Med was where I trained for General Surgery.

D: Did you still do further training after graduating from the MMC general surgery program? What made you decide to take up minimally invasive surgery?

GH: No formal training anymore. During that time, minimally invasive surgery or laparoscopic surgery was at its infancy. My uncle Dr. Raul Fores, invited a good friend from the US who was doing a lot of laparoscopic cholecystectomies since the early 90’s to come to MMC and help start minimally invasive surgery in the country. That was in the early 90’s if I’m not mistaken, I was a first year resident. He came and started training senior surgeons. I saw the the success and complications that came with the procedure… so I learned a lot and fell in love with it. People don’t know that it was MMC that started laparoscopic cholecystectomy in the Philippines. Other hospitals and surgeons are claiming to be the first. We are trying to find documentation now to rectify this. After graduating from residency, I went to Vietnam for a month. The hospital was doing 50 cases of lap chole a day! I learned so much more in my stay there. Since I was always with my Uncle in his cases, I saw a lot of lap chole’s. By the time I graduated residency in year 2000, he had 1000 lap chole cases already. He had the most cases locally.

Doc: You’re a Fores. The grandson of Dr. Jose Y. Fores, one of the founders of MMC. How was your life as a general surgery resident in the hospital that your Lolo helped establish?

Dr. Gerard Henson: I’d say it was harder for me compared to the guy next to me. Actually it was worse for me because they wanted to kick my ass to make sure that I worked extra hard and live up to the standards of the name. I had to follow-up on the legacy of my Lolo and my Uncle (Dr. Raul Fores part of the “founders group” of MMC, eminent surgeon, former President and CEO and medical director of the Makati Medical Center, and father of Asia’s Best Female Chef for 2016, Margarita Fores). My Uncle was my best mentor. He had thousands of cases and I definitely learned a lot from him. Dr. Benjamin Magsino was the one who trained me with a whip (part of the NKTI Urology Triumvirate together with Dr. Abelardo M. Prodigalidad and Dr. Genaro M. Yusi, Pioneers of the NKTI Urology Training Program). He was the best friend of my Uncle Raul. He taught me how to do an exploratory laparotomy, he guided me through difficult cases, he gave me the courage to be an independent surgeon while i was just in my second year of training. He was very strict but when it came to bedside manners, he was the kindest to his patients. Seeing this helped me develop the social aspect of being a doctor. I was also lucky enough to have been guided during my training by Dr. Arguelles and Dr. Caedo, pillars of surgery here in the Philippines.

D: Seems like having a pedigree did not help much during training to make things easier, did it help you in starting your practice?

GH Definitely! During my senior year, I was already working with my Uncle in all his surgeries. He would do 2 to 5 cases in a day. Maybe 2 or 3 laparoscopic cholecyctectomies in a day and some other cases. So that was my life until he started to slow down and eventually retire. Being his associate, him retiring, jumpstarted my practice.

D And the vocation has been loving you ever since?

GH: Yeah! I hope it continues to!

D: When did your love for music start?

GH: Ever since I was a kid! My Dad was an audiophile. He was into Hi-FI audio equipment and had a record collection of over a thousand. I grew up with music.

Doc: When did DJ-ing start?

Dr. Gerard Henson: When in high school, I had a lot of friends from Xavier School because my neighbor was a Xavierian. We decided to come up with a group and started DJ-ing. I found the love for it and the rest is history.

D: What was your first gig?

GH: In the end of high school, of course there was the graduation ball. They needed someone to spin for the ’83 Xavier Ball. Since I was the only non-Xavierian, it became my gig by default.

D: Vinyl or Digital?

GH: Vinyl but digital now can sound like vinyl.

D: What happened to your DJ career during med school and residency?

GH: It had to take a hiatus. I only started spinning again during my last year of residency training. After graduating from training, I started doing parties again. The DJ scene then was transitioning from physical media to controllers but I had so much CD’s already that time. CD players were the norm that time so it was easy for me to get back at it and started playing with CD’s.

Doc: What took it to the next level?

Dr. Gerard Henson: It was in those parties that I met people who were into the same thing. One was a director for events, shows, and concerts. The other one was a professional DJ. We decided to form a group and call ourselves couchLab. Everyone at that time was into hard house, trance, and techno. We decided to do the opposite. We played down-tempo, lounge, and chill. We did sunset sessions and started the chill out craze in the early 2000’s. If you remember the sunset sessions in Tianenmen in Makati Ave, pillows on the floor, curtains down with sunsets looping on screens and chill out music playing - that was us. We were also regulars in Wasabi as well.

D: Wasabi and Tienanmen were the “It” places then, I can attest to that having spent a lot of gimmick nights in those places. Obviously, the scene has changed and moved on. How did you transition?

GH: After a while we (couchLab) parted ways. Soon enough, friends started inviting me to spin in their parties and events. I did events for brands like Monocle magazine, Bang and Olufsen, Balenciaga, and Comme de Garcon. It was around this time that I was invited to take up residency in Cuisine (one of the fore gone institutions of the 2000’s lounge scene). I did Friday nights for 2 years. I did sunset sessions in the roof deck of Raffles hotel as well. Long after Cusine closed it doors, I was in Wildflour Rockwell. I played there every Friday. I was the OG of Wildflour. I did their first night. That continued until residents in Rockwell started complaining and we had to move to BGC.

D: What are your hobbies?

GH: Cycling. I like photography. I like art.

D: How do you choose the art that you buy?

GH: Whatever that appeals to me. Me and Tere (wife), we have the same taste in art. It makes collecting easier or more dangerous because we enable each other.

Doc: Your walls are filled with paintings already and there are art toys everywhere. Seems like you have no space for more…

Dr. Gerard Henson: We have more space in the new clinic that we are opening…

D: You’re also part of the local ramen scene, how did this start?

GH: Ukkokei in Pasay Road closed already at the start of the pandemic. The chef, who became a friend because I frequented his ramen-ya so much for the tantanmen, approached me and asked if I wanted to partner up and open a ramen-ya, otherwise he would be flying back to Japan. Of course I said yes together with my cousin Margarita and her son Amado. So we opened Ramen Ron in Rockwell (one of Tatler Dining’s Best Japanese Restaurants for 2023).

D: What’s your favorite ramen other than Ramen Ron?

GH: I’m a loyal ramen lover, so I only stick to one love…Ramen Ron.

D: What is your advice to the young doctors reading this?

GH: Continue what you love to do. Master your craft. Keep yourself updated, never stop learning. The patient-doctor relationship is paramount, the trust between the two is the most important.

D: Thank you!