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The World Family Doctor Day (WFDD) is to be celebrated on 19 May each year when the important role and contribution of family doctors in health care systems around the globe are to be acknowledged. As family doctors, we pride ourselves in providing personal, comprehensive and continuing health care for all of our patients throughout the different stages in life. The 2020 WFDD Theme proposed by WONCA is, “Family doctors on the front line”, which describes our role perfectly in the current COVID-19 crisis. We stand firm in the community looking after patients in need, we go to quarantine and triage stations to help screening the patients, and we follow up the patients for their medical, social and psychological needs in their own environment where they are familiar with. To celebrate family doctors’ contribution towards the current crisis on this special occasion, we have compiled various video clips and photographs collections with the help of our College Council and our members. We would be showing these compilations while celebrating the WFDD with WONCA member organisations and various medical institutions in different localities. |
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In addition, these video clips would also be shown in our College’s usual channels, e.g. College website, Facebook, etc. Happy World Family Doctor Day 2020 to all! As the world is still fighting fiercely against the SARS-CoV-2 virus and trying to contain the pandemic, there are some initial advances in identifying useful treatment for the disease. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued an emergency use authorisation for the investigational antiviral drug remdesivir for the treatment of suspected or laborator y-confirmed COVID-19 in adults and children hospitalised with severe disease. Despite the limited information available about the safety and effectiveness of using remdesivir to treat people infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus, the investigational drug was shown to shorten the time to recovery in some patients in a clinical trial. Also announced recently was a multicentre, prospective, open-label, randomised, phase 2 trial in adults with COVID-19 who were admitted to six hospitals in Hong Kong revealed that early triple antiviral therapy with interferon beta-1b, lopinavir– ritonavir, and ribavirin was safe and superior to lopinavir–ritonavir alone in alleviating symptoms and shortening the duration of viral shedding and hospital stay in patients with mild to moderate COVID-19. At around the same time, World Health Organisation (WHO) reported that many heads of states and global health leaders met and made an unprecedented commitment to work together to accelerate the development and production of new vaccines, tests and treatments for COVID-19 worldwide. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General said, “We will only halt COVID-19 through solidarity”. We must indeed continue to work together closely as a global community to overcome this crisis.
Talking about prevention, it is one of the essential elements of primary care practice and family doctors are most appropriately placed to guide people in the community to have better preventive activities so that they stay healthy in the community. Professor James Dickinson, Professor of Departments of Family Medicine and Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary and a former member of the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care has written an editorial in the forthcoming June issue of the Hong Kong Practitioner journal entitled, “What prevention works in medical practice – a Canadian perspective”. Professor Dickinson discussed on topics related to effective prevention and shared his expertise and experience on the practical tips in conducting preventive guidance for people in the community.
Just a quick update on our annual Hong Kong Primary Care Conference scheduled to be held from 12 - 13 September 2020. Many thanks to the hard work and dedication by the Organising Committee lead by Dr. Lorna Ng, various facets of the Scientific Programme are being finalised and details would be released in due course.
The HKCFP Research Commit tee has just announced our two annual research funds open for application, namely The Trainees Research Fund and the Research Seed Fund. The Trainees Research Fund and The Research Seed Fund are open to all registered HKCFP trainees and members respectively. The submission deadline is 29th October 2020. For application details, please refer to the corresponding announcement.
Please continue to collect deep throat saliva (DTS) specimens from patients with symptoms to support the surveillance of COVID-19. The updated simplified procedures for private doctors are in the latest CHP announcement.(https://www.chp.gov.hk/files/pdf/letters_to_doctors_20200513.pdf)
Dr. David V K CHAO
President