The First International Congress of the Academy was held on 26-29 November, 1998 at the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine Premises. This was attended by 944 delegates from Hong Kong and overseas.
It began with the Opening
Ceremony in the Run Run Shaw Hall. Dr CH Leong (who, with Dr Richard
YH Yu, co-chaired the Congress Organising Committee) introduced
the on-stage guests, who included Chief Executive The Hon. Tung
Chee-hwa; the Academy's Immediate Past President, Professor Sir
David Todd; presidents of HKAM Colleges; and presidents and representatives
of Colleges from other countries.
The President of the Academy, Dr David
Fang, gave the Welcome Address and invited the Chief Executive to
unveil the Commemorative Plaque to officially open the building. The 10-storey building of the Academy occupies 4,300
m2 of land area and 15,000 m2 of gross floor area containing a multipurpose grand hall, an auditorium a lecture theatre, 2 function rooms and 7 meeting rooms. Dr Fang then thanked the major donors of the building project, who were presented silver platters by Mr Tung.
The Halnan
Lecture
The Inauguration was followed by the Halnan Lecture, given by Professor Sir David Todd, which was entitled "Medicine-Quo vadis". Professor Todd said that developments in medicine must take into account the needs
of society, changes in demography, patient expectations, costs,
and the importance of preventive medicine. He con-cluded that the
Academy and Colleges must have a significant voice in decisions
and policies affecting health and medical matters.
Scientific
Programme
The three-day congress, entitled Challenges to Specialists in the
21st Century, provided some excellent presentations by distinguished
international and local speakers. Among the programme were six plenary
lectures, 22 multidisciplinary symposia, satellite symposia, paper
presentations, and poster sessions. More than 70 overseas guests
participated in the Scientific Programme as speakers or chairpersons
of the plenary lectures and symposia. Presenting the plenary lectures
were Dr D Fang, Prof LA Turnberg, Prof A Cohen, Prof AS Dixon, Prof
M Stanton-Hicks, and Prof C Barker.
Challenges
to the Specialist Beyond 2000
The President of the Academy, Dr David Fang, started the formal
programme of the HKAM First International Congress on 27 November
1998, with a plenary lecture discuss-ing the challenges that specialists
will face in the new millennium.
Reflecting the main theme of the three-day
conference, the lecture focused on the advances in information,
health, and biological sciences that will profoundly alter the way
medicine will be practised beyond 2000.
Dr Fang spoke about the future directions
of managed care and health care financing, and the role of specialists
in helping governments formulate sustainable health policies. He
forecast the future supply of doctors in Hong Kong to be 168 per
100 000 in the year 2010 (for an estimated population of 7.7 million),
and stressed the need for post-internship in-service training and
continuing medical education for all doctors.
The President also outlined how the
role of alternative medicine, particularly Traditional Chinese
Medicine, may be developed and monitored, and emphasised the importance
of evidence-based medicine. Claiming that "in 20 years time,
the way we practise medicine today may be so radically altered as
to be unrecognisable", he identified rapidly developing areas
such as information technology, telemedicine, and applications
of gene therapy. We would need to rely on quality assurance, auditing,
and appraisal, however, to ensure that standards of medical practice
meet the expectations of scientists and the public. To conclude
the plenary lecture, Dr Fang quoted the motto of the Academy: "Opus
Medicinae Salus" (The physician leads the way to good health).
The programme for the 3 days included:
I Halnan Lecture
Medicine-Quo Vadis
2 Plenary Lecture
Challenges to the Specialist Beyond 2000
3 Symposium-Medical Ethics
4 Symposium-Congenital Anomalies
5 Papers-Medicine
6 Papers-Surgery 1
7 Symposium -Transplantation
8 Symposium -Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma
9 Papers-Anaesthesiolocy/Medicine/Pathology
10 Papers-Radiology/Surgery
11 Plenary Lecture
Evident-Based Medicine
12 Symposium -Continous Medical Education
13 Symposium -Application of Molecular Biology in Medicine
14 Papers-Orthopaedics and Traumatology
15 Symposium-Substance Abuse
16 Papers-Young Investigator's Awards
17 Symposium -Managed Care
18 Papers-Obstetrics and Gynaecology
19 Plenary Lecture
Survival of the Generalist in a Specialist World
20 Symposium-Medical Education and Training
21 Symposium-Trauma
22 Papers-Pediatrics
23 Symposium Hepatocellular Carcinoma
24 Symposium-The Application of Laser
25 Papers-Sugery 2
26 Plenary Lecture
The Quest for Transplantation Tolerance
27 Symposium-Maintaining Standards of Specialists
28 Symposium-Infectious Diseases
29 Symposium-Pain Management
30 Symposium--Sleep and Psychiatric Disorders
31 Plenary Lecture
The Training of Our Specialists into the Next Millenium
32 Symposium-Osteoporosis
33 Symposium-Minimally Invasive Procedures
34 Papers-Anaesthesiology Obstetrics and Gynaecology
35 Symposium-Breast Cancer
36 Symposium-Thalassaemia
37 Papers-Emergency Medicine/Medicine
38 Papers-Dentistry/Otorhinolarynoology
39 Papers-Surgery 3
40 Symposium-Diabetes Mellitus
41 Symposium-Traditional Chinese Medicine
42 Papers-Psychiatry/Family Medicine
43 Papers Video-Radiology Poster Session
Delegates -- Country of origin
Australia 36
Canada 20
China 19
Czechoslovakia 1
Denmark 1
Finland 1
France 1
Hong Kong 791
Ireland 3
Jordan 1
Korea 1
New Zealand 5
Philippines 2
Romania 1
Russia 5
Scotland 2
Singapore 8
South Africa 1
Taiwan 4
U.S.A. 14
United Kingdom 27
Attendence by Colleges:
Anaesthesiologists 33
Community Medicine 20
Dental Surgeons 30
Emergency Medicine 15
Family Physicians 13
O and G 49
Ophthalmologists 9
Orthopaedic Surgeons 37
Otorhinolaryngologists 37
Paediatricians 103
Pathologists 21
Physicians 21
Psychiatrists 21
Radiologists 43
Surgeons 83
Total 648
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