Fellows are reminded that their 2003 Annual Subscriptions are due on 1 January 2003.  Fellows should have received a demand note from either the Academy or their College.  Please be reminded that it is Council’s policy that subscriptions received by the Academy after 30 June 2003 will be subject to a surcharge of 5% on the subscription amount.  Please settle your subscription as soon as possible.

10th Anniversary Congress

This year marks the 10th Anniversary of the Academy.  To celebrate this occasion, a 10th anniversary congress entitled “New Challenges in Healthcare” will be held from 28 to 30 of November.  Plenary speakers include Prof. Carol Black, President, Royal College of Physicians, Prof. Sir David Todd, Founding President of the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine, Prof. Nick Wright, London Research institute, Prof. Arthur Li, Secretary for Education and Manpower, HKSAR, Prof. T.W. Hu, Professor of Health Economics & Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, University of California-Berkeley, USA.  Symposia topics cover Common Asian Cancers, Life-style Diseases, Cancer Screening, Moving On-Transition of Chronically Ill Adolescents from Paediatrics to Adult Health Care, Emerging ENT Problems, Cardiovascular Diseases, Financing Health Care: A Global Challenge; Emergency Medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Molecular Medicine, Mental Health, New Challenges in Dental/Oral Health; Sexual and Reproductive Health, Eye; Geriatric Health and Osteoporosis, Infectious Diseases and Psycho-social Health.  Both Academies of Medicine in Malaysia and Singapore will also take part in this congress.  Please check out more details from the Academy website: http://www.hkam.org.hk/nch/index.html

CME and the Practising Certificate

Fellows may be aware that the Medical Council resolved in March 2002 that CME would be made a requirement for all practising doctors, starting from January 2005.

It is anticipated that a 3-year practising certificate would replace the existing 1-year certificate effective from January 2005 and that the specialist CME would be accepted for renewal of Practising Certificate.  As such, the Academy Council has decided to synchronize the CME cycles with the duration of the practising certificate.  The Academy Council agreed that all CME cycles for existing Fellows shall start afresh from 1 January 2005.  In order to achieve this end, CME cycles started within 3 years before 1 January 2005 will have to be counted on a pro-rata basis. This means that if a Fellow’s CME cycle length before 1 January 2005 is 1.5 years, the Fellow shall need to gain 45 CME points before 1 January 2005.

Fellows are advised to take note of this arrangement, and plan their CME activities accordingly.  Fellows will be informed of the number of CME points they need to obtain up to 31 December 2004 in due course.

The SARS crisis has affected examinations of some Colleges.  The surgical colleges have cancelled their examinations originally scheduled for March because overseas examiners were unable to come and the College of Physicians has decided to postpone their examinations.   The Academy has also cancelled the dedicated CME activities for the Medical Council CME programme, which had been arranged to be held in certain hospitals.  These activities will resume when the situation improves.