Conferment Ceremony, Hong Kong College of Physicians 12 October 2024 Prof Daniel Tak Mao CHAN President Hong Kong College of Physicians The Annual Conferment Ceremony is the happiest day in the year for the College of Physicians, because it is the day that we welcome another new generation of well-trained and dedicated physicians, who represent the bright future ahead for Internal Medicine. But before I congratulate our new Fellows and Members on your achievements, I would like to go back a few years and congratulate you on your very wise decision to enter into Internal Medicine. As illustrated by the talks on cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic syndrome and geriatric medicine in the scientific programme this afternoon, Internal Medicine is the core and major discipline in all healthcare systems, and the healthcare demand in Medicine and its many subspecialties continues to escalate globally. Therefore, we would always need a strong workforce of high quality physicians. Fast forward to tonight, I would like to commend you on your successful completion of the structured Physician Training programme, and congratulate you on being accredited specialist status in your respective fields and being conferred Fellowship of the College. When you mention to others that you are a Physician trained in Hong Kong, you would automatically earn respect because the professional standard of Physicians from Hong Kong has long been well regarded internationally, not only in terms of knowledge and skills, but also our professionalism, ethical standard, and humanism. So how do we achieve that? Obviously you have put in a lot of effort in the past seven years, and this has paid off. But in addition to your hard work, we also have a good training programme. The three years of Basic Physician Training and our long-term partnership with the Royal Colleges of Physicians in the U.K. ensure a solid foundation in our Physician Trainees, and that our Trainees achieve the highest of international standards, as exemplified by their high passing rate in the MRCP(UK) Examination. Indeed, the MRCP(UK) Examination is also the obligatory Intermediate Examination of our Physician Training programme, and has been held locally with examiners from Hong Kong and the Royal Colleges of Physicians since the 1980s. With a rigorous format covering different competency domains, this examination serves as an important means of quality assurance and international benchmarking. In the phase of Higher Physician Training, we take pride in having put a lot of emphasis on ensuring that our specialists are not only skilled in their own subspecialty, but they have at least 24 months of advanced training in a broad-based Internal Medicine specialty, such as Advanced Internal Medicine or Geriatrics. We believe this is important for holistic care of patients. The rapid progress of medical knowledge and technologies leads to increasing subspecialization. But we mustn't lose sight that a patient is not just a summation of individual organs or separate diseases, but the patient as a whole. Having a broad-based knowledge on conditions outside one’s own subspecialty is prerequisite to a holistic perspective, ultimately for the benefit of patients and their families. Yet having a good Physician Training programme and having you working hard in the programme are not enough. We need people to run the programme. I would like to take this opportunity to thank, and you should also join me in thanking, your Trainers, your supervisors and teachers. Without them, one would not be able to deliver the training that is required to produce high-quality Physicians. Over the years, the College has worked with the Hospital Authority to ensure that Physician Trainees get protected time for their training. You may not know, but your supervisors and Trainers are not ‘protected’ in this regard. There is no ‘protected time’ for their contributions to training. They have devoted much of their own time, despite an already very busy clinical service, to put their effort into building structured training programmes for Trainees. Some involve simulation, while others include teach-ins, seminars and workshops. There are also various continuous medical education initiatives, some held in conjunction with local or overseas organizations. For example, in May this year we had a very successful webinar organized jointly with the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, accessible to Fellows of the two Colleges around the world. All these efforts by many colleagues contribute to the success of our training programmes and the high quality of our doctors, and this is very much appreciated by the College. So I would like to congratulate you once again on achieving this very significant milestone in your professional career. Having said that, this is but only the beginning. Obtaining specialist accreditation is just the beginning of your lifelong career. From now on, you will face a lot of choices - choices in your career, choices in what sort of work you would like to go into, and what sort of things you would like to do in life. Some might want to continue to do clinical service; some might want to do research; some might want to go into healthcare administration, and some might want to go into education and training. All of these are important to the healthcare system and to the profession. I just want to share a bit of my personal thoughts on making career decisions. Last year, I told the batch of newly accredited Fellows that there was no such thing as ‘work-life balance’. I'm reasserting this by reminding everyone that when you make your career choices it is not a good idea to regard this so-called ‘work-life balance’ as a priority. This is a very wrong concept, as it implies that work and life are opposite of each other. In fact, work is part of life, as is family, and as are good times and bad times. One would need all these life experiences to make life wholesome. So I would urge you, whenever you make your decisions about what to do and what not to do, follow your interests and think about what are the things that you would like to put your time into - things that are of value to you, and things that would help you realize your potentials. Certain paths might appear challenging and slightly unpredictable, but would you regret it later if you forsake an opportunity and choose an easier path instead? If you decide on something that looks easy, but do not enjoy what you do, it is probably not a very wise choice. In this regard, I go back to mention our colleagues who have put a lot of effort and time into developing and strengthening our training programmes to make sure that our future generations are well-trained, very good doctors. Certainly they must think that this work is valuable and their time is well spent. And finally, in making your career choices, I do hope that you will always remember the underprivileged. And so on this note, I wish that every one of you would make your right choices in life and have a fruitful and rewarding life. |
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