Hong Kong College of Family Physicians

The busiest weekend of the College calendar has just passed. The 6th Hong Kong Primary Care Conference happened on 4th and 5th June 2016. This was immediately followed by our 29th Fellowship Conferment Ceremony and the 27th Dr. Sun Yat Sun Oration.

The HKPCC was again a great success with nearly 500 attendees. The main theme was “A Flourishing Community- Our Vision in Primary Care” to address the present and future development of Primary Care in Hong Kong and worldwide. We were privileged to have Prof Michael Kidd, President of WONCA, Prof. Sophia Chan, Under Secretary for Food and Health Bureau and Prof Lam Tai Pong, Professor, Department of Family Medicine and Primary Care of the University of Hong Kong to deliver three high power plenary lectures. This year we even had two workshops on Communication Skills in Putonghua to address local and Greater China participants.

Prof. Michael Kidd’s plenary speech touched on Bill Gates, the richest man in the world at the launch of “Primary HealthCare Performance Initiatives” last year. Mr. Gates mentioned “Hear argument about vertical and horizontal health care. The horizontal piece is the most important”. Strengthening primary health care is the most viable way to close the treatment gap and ensure that all people in all communities get access to the health care they need. If you don’t trust me, trust Bill! Who is the horizontal piece? We are!

Prof. Lam Tai Pong reminded us the consultative document in 2005 titled “Building a Healthy Tomorrow” and recommended the HKSAR government to promote family doctor concept. One of the important elements of the concept is: the doctor has the mindset and training, “training” of managing problems at the primary care level in a holistic way. Of course my wishful thinking is all primary care doctors in Hong Kong will undergo training supervised by the College.

At the 29th Fellowship Conferment, there were 15 Diplomats of DFM, 26 Fellows passing the Conjoint Examination and 13 Exit Examination Fellows receiving their certificates. We were exuberant to witness one of our senior Fellows, Dr. Choi Kin celebrating the conferment of his son.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Sun Yat Sen, an alumnus of the University of Hong Kong. We were honoured to have Prof. Gabriel M Leung, Dean of Faculty of Medicine, the University of Hong Kong and one of the very best medical speakers to deliver the 27th Dr. Sun Yat Sen Oration, titled: “What would Dr. Sun have done?” Initially we were wondering whether Prof Leung was going to talk about politics or medicine. He skillfully mentioned “Medicine is a social science and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale. Medicine as a social science, as the science of human beings, has the obligation to point out problems and to attempt their theoretical solution; the politician, the practical anthropologist, must find the means for their actual solution.” Prof. Leung also pointed out “Licenciate” was not equivalent to “Licensed to practice”. The best example was Dr. Sun who had to quit Macao because under Portuguese regulations, no one not possessing a Portuguese diploma could legitimately practice there, and so he moved to Canton to work. His talk was meticulously researched and a true reflection of the Hong Kong situation!

Dr. Angus M W CHAN
President

Back