|
A report on the current situation and the development of primary care services in Hong Kong by the Bauhinia Foundation Research Centre was recently released, namely, “Healthcare for All: Why and How?”. Recommendations to improve the quality of primary care services in Hong Kong were suggested and one of them was to allocate additional resources to develop and support Family Medicine training. Over the years, our College has developed a series of solid and effective family medicine training modalities covering various domains, including clinical updates, people-centred care, empowerment of patients to health promotion and disease management, and communication skills for upkeeping good patient-doctor relationship, to name just a few. The latest addition is the Certificate Course of Essential Family Medicine. Through systematic structured vocational training, continuing medical education and continuing professional development activities, the professionalism of family doctors would be further enhanced, and the efficiency and quality of primary health care services would be improved and ultimately the patients would be benefited. |
 |
Therefore, the earlier the additional investment in family medicine training is made available, the sooner the community can harvest the benefits towards the society as a whole. Not only should more family medicine training posts be created, but also family doctors working in the community should be provided with more support for their ongoing continuing professional development.
The first of a series of community-based primary health care service networks, the District Health Centre (DHC), with a new operation model focusing on community participation and collaboration was officially opened on 24 September 2019 at Kwai Tsing. Through district-based medical-social collaboration and public-private partnership, it aims to raise the public awareness on personal health management,enhance disease prevention and strengthen multidisciplinary health care services in the community. The government’s plan to establish DHCs in all 18 districts demonstrates her determination to strengthen community-based primary health care services in Hong Kong.
The Fok Ying-tung Prize for The Outstanding Chinese Doctor Awards 2019 were presented to ten outstanding doctors who have made significant contributions to medicine at large on 20 September, riding on the Annual Conference of World Association of Chinese Doctors. Dr. Donald Li Kwok-tung, our President of World Organisation of Family Doctors (WONCA), was among the recipients of the prestigious awards. The World Association of Chinese Doctors also presented a Lifelong Achievement Award for World Outstanding Chinese Doctor to Dr. Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun, former director general of World Health Organisation (WHO), for her significant achievements and contributions towards global health care. Our heartiest congratulations to Dr. Li and Dr. Chan!
Just to continue from my previous month’s message highlighting the forthcoming programme of "The 4th AMM-AMS-HKAM Tripartite Congress cum 53rd Singapore – Malaysia Congress of Medicine & Hong Kong Primary Care Conference 2019", on 7 December, the opening ceremony would be followed by the Halnan Lecture entitled, “Knocking down barriers to inclusive healthcare” to be delivered by Mr. Ricky MK Chu, Chairman, Equal Opportunities Commission, Hong Kong. The remaining programmes of the day would be comprised of seminars and workshops on application of artificial intelligence in healthcare, update on eye procedures, jaw pain management, free paper presentations, influenza management, voluntary health insurance scheme, and asthma management strategies. Some of them do require prior registrations. Therefore, please try to enrol early to avoid potential disappointment!
The Hong Kong Academy of Medicine hosted an annual dinner with distinguished Fellows from different Colleges recently. I was made very proud indeed by our two distinguished College Fellows, namely Dr. Vivian Yip and Dr. Brendan Wu.
Dr. David V K CHAO
President