Hospital Cats Love Turon

by Wilfredo Liangco

From the author of Even Ducks Get Liver Cancer and other medical misadventures comes this new collection of essays, with Will trying to answer such burning medical questions as: Why can’t he swallow? What do porn DVD vendors think of him? Why are hospital cats better fed than doctors? What is that white spot on his convention bag?

Hospital Cats Love Turon and other medical misadventures is a candid, comic chart through medical training and beyond, and Liangco invites us all to cruise along with him through an oozy swirl of growth and transformation.

271 pages, Paperback

Published September 9, 2026

Reviews

[Wilfredo Liangco · Rating 5 out of 5]

I L🩷VE IT!😆

[Jade Capiñanes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here, a medical clerk diagnoses a patient’s cause of death as “poverty.” Medically inaccurate, but 100% agree. In the Philippines, you’re one hospitalization away from posting your GCash details online and begging a politician who’d rather you stay desperate than fix the system. Will Liangco knows this world from the inside. He has worked in charity wards where the ICU is always full and where a son ventilates his mother by hand because no one can pay for the machine. “Hospital Cats Love Turon” chronicles this life across forty-odd essays, written with the comic precision of a man who has seen too much and remembers all of it. His ward cats freeload on turon while the residents starve. He falls asleep on a parking lot bench clutching a bottle of preserved organs, then wakes up convinced sentient mutant rats have eaten it. His colleagues promote his book at funerals. Liangco is the rare writer who can make you ugly-laugh on a page about someone dying and make you cry on a page about banana fritters, because he writes about the Filipino healthcare system with the rage and tenderness of someone who loves it and is exhausted by it in equal measure. If you ever got a terminal illness (let’s aggressively hope not), you’d wish he was the one to break the news to you.

[Ryan Joseph Lirazan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Congratulations to you, Dr. Liangco, on conquering the sophomore slump, and to us lucky fans able to secure a copy of Hospital Cats Love Turon and Other Medical Misadventures from the Manila International Book Fair before it sold out! I am lucky to have seen this material evolve to its final state, one that is more raunchy, unafraid, and personal, yet still on-brand with your distinct type of humor, vulnerability, and relatability found in Even Ducks Get Liver Cancer.

I’ve seen you break the fourth wall several times in this one, use creative and unexpected ways to end an essay, and be purposeful in the use of descriptive details to elicit an exact feeling and advance the plot. Also, thanks to you, Dayuhan, Kara Mia, and Tagos ng Dugo are now immortalized morsels of Pinoy pop culture for future generations to Google.

Speaking of Google, for this book, I also had to look up several words such as spittle emanata, frotteur, and... coprophilia, much to my scandal! Surprisingly, my personal favorites also had terms stuck in my head, such as “Biggest Loser” (bulbon!) and “Sexual Awakenings” (PLDT!), as well as stories that left me in tears, such as “Innocent” and “Shame.”

Please never stop, as these stories need to be told. I finished this book after a long flight, and it left me hungry for turon and more misadventures I hope you’ve already begun writing. For your next, we’ll surely be there, ready to sell it out just as damn well!

[Patrick Ong-iko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this, Doc Will!

[whensharkerssharkyou]

Well Well Well!!!!!!

I just received an email on this platform saying an update with the authors I've followed, and this new book occured.

I haven' read it yet, but the based on my previous review of Wil's books, I think I need to give it a try. My expectations definitely changed after reading the first one. I hope there are limited medical terminologies and hifalutin words, but if the author chooses to do so, then let's give it a chance.