The long awaited consultation document on Health Care Reform, “ Lifelong Investment in Health” was finally released. For those who have devoted their time and effort in developing Family Medicine, it was worth the wait. We finally see what we have preached all along in this document; that the effectiveness of primary medical care can be enhanced by the promotion and adoption of Family Medicine practice, recognised as a specialised discipline of medicine that provides primary, continuing and comprehensive care to an individual and the family in their own environment. One of the objectives stated in the paper is to provide comprehensive and lifelong holistic health care which is humane, and that care and comfort to the individual is as valued as medicine and technology based interventions. This is to be applauded.

What lies ahead is the difficult task of training the targeted 316 Family Medicine trainees in the coming year, 2001-2002. There must be full cooperation between the private and public sectors. Already quite a few experienced Fellows of our College have volunteered to be training supervisors in the Hospital Authority starting next year. We appreciate the incentives and recognition offered by the Hospital Authority. The approval of the part time training program by the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine will facilitate more experienced Fellows to achieve specialist status thus increasing the number of Family Medicine training supervisors available. The content of our Family Medicine training program will also be critically reviewed periodically to ensure that international standards are maintained whilst being practical and meeting the expectation of the local community

Family Medicine is a concept that should be shared by all primary health care workers and such an attitude will ensure effective care. Nonetheless, there needs to be mechanisms to assure quality. The Primary Medical Care Assessment launched by our College last year might have threatened many doctors who were probably reluctant to go through an assessment. Yet assessments can be performed not only by an Academic College, but also by peers as well as by practitioners themselves. After an assessment, a doctor who progresses to modify his/her practice according to comments received is actually undergoing Continuous Professional Development (CPD). The momentum generated by such assessments and improvements will upgrade and maintain high professional standards. Our College will be sending out a practice assessment package (PAP) to medical practitioners next year to encourage self audit.

On delivering this traditional New Year Message, I wish to pay tribute to the Editor of this Journal, “ The Hong Kong Practitioner”, Dr. Lam Tai Pong. Dr. Lam made tremendous contribution to the publication of the Hong Kong Practitioner, which is indexed in EMBASE/Excerpta Medica. As he steps down from the Editorship, we wish him all the best in his endeavours and look forward to his continuous contribution to this Journal.

May the year 2001, the true millennium, be a prosperous one to you all.