About HKCFP > President’s Message
December 2015
November has been another busy month.
HKCFP was one the three Colleges under HKAM being invited to participate in the academic exchange symposium entitled “Innovations in Residency Training in the University of Chicago and Hong Kong” which was co-hosted by the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine and the University of Chicago. The symposium was held at the HKAM building on Monday 2 November, 2015 and the participants were spilt into three groups with three specialty Colleges as facilitators: Family Physicians, Surgeons, and Physicians.
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Our College was represented by Dr. Ruby Lee and Dr. William Wong as
speakers and Dr. David Chao as the facilitator for the session “Innovations in Family Medicine/General Practice Residency Programmes” together with speakers from University of Chicago, namely Dr. Mari Egan and Dr. Mark Potter. Both the HKCFP and the University of Chicago presented the characteristics, commonalities and differences of their Family Medicine training programmes and exchanged views on the future directions of
training structure and contents. Other Colleges like Paediatricians and Emergency Medicine joined this subgroup for discussion to enhance their training programmes. It was a very enlightening experience to share with all the participants of the symposium. I can categorically say our training is amongst the best in the world!
HKAM hosted a lecture delivered by Dr. Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, who is a renowned author, surgeon and public health researcher from the U.S., titled "Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End" on 12th November 2015. Dr. Gawande began his lecture by sharing his personal experience for end of life care. He recognized that well-being for most people is larger than mere survival.
His humanistic approach in end of life care is in fact an excellent reflection of what we have always aspired to in Family Medicine: quintessential patient-centred care. I am surprised to learn 50% of Americans passed away in dignity in hospices as a result of the Obamacare. Hong Kong has a long long way to go. In fact, family doctors in other countries contribute substantially in end of life care and some are even head of hospices. Dr. Gawande has a website dedicated to the medical community, the Ariadne Labs (www.ariadnelabs.org) and it contains lots of professional material related to end of life care. If you have time, please look up the "Serious Illness Conversation Guide". It applies well when we face patients with serious life threatening disease.
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At the end of the month, HKCFP sent a delegation to at tend the inauguration of the Cross- Strait Medicine Exchange Association Cooperation Centre in Chongqing, China. The delegation was led by Dr. Donald Li, Dr. Lau Ho Lim, Dr. Gene Tsoi, Dr. Daniel Chu, Dr. Dana Lo, Dr. Jenny Wang and I had contributed to deliver lectures and workshops at this meeting. The Mainland new healthcare policy has put a lot of emphasis on primary care and intends to train an extra 150,000 primary care doctors within the next five years. This is a colossal task beyond our imagination! There will be more exchanges between Hong Kong and the Mainland in the years to come.
On behalf of the College, I wish everyone a warm Winter Solstice, Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!
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Dr. Angus M W CHAN
PresidentBack
