Volume 29, Issue 1 (click here to download the full pdf version)
Message from the President
In this issue of the College Newsletter, I am saddened to bring the news to all Members and Fellows that one of our Honorary Fellows, Professor WU Bing Quan passed away peacefully on 21 June 2020. Professor WU was a pioneer in the development of Pathology in China. He was one of the first group of scientists to be sent to the United States for training where he met Professor Joseph CK LEE, Former Dean and current Honorary Clinical Professor of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. They became good friends during their time together in the United States and hence Professor WU became associated with our College. Professor LEE has kindly written an obituary for Professor WU and our College also sends its condolences to Professor WU’s family.
The 15th Trainee Presentation Session, the 28th Annual General Meeting and Conferment Ceremony, the 28th T.B. TEOH Foundation Lecture and Dinner were successfully held on 23rd November 2019 when the social unrest was quietening down. All attending Members, Fellows and their families enjoyed a wonderful evening. Professor KWONG Yok Lam, our 28th T.B. TEOH Foundation Lecturer, delivered a lecture entitled “An amazing journey from micro to macro and back” with a human touch of his interest in reading science fiction. The winner of the 15th Trainee Presentation Session was Dr. CHENG Hua Tse Timothy who presented his work on ‘Comprehensive characterization and resolution of eltrombopag interference on bilirubin measurement’.
The Academies of Medicine for Singapore and Malaysia organised the 53rd Singapore Malaysia Congress of Medicine in Singapore in January 2020. I attended the Congress as well as the Joint Academy Council Meeting on behalf of the College. In the Congress Symposium, a fascinating talk on how big data and social media affects the hierarchical relationship and massive manipulation was presented by Mr. George YEO, the Former Cabinet Minister of Singapore.
The Topical Update in this issue was on “Liver Injury associated with Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors – An Update on Clinicopathological Features“, by Dr. LO Cheuk Lam Regina of The University of Hong Kong.
In response to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, Professor LAI Koon Chi Christopher of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Professor Siddharth SRIDHAR of The University of Hong Kong, jointly published an article on “Coronavirus Diversity and Infection through Host Receptor” in Ming Pao on 7th April 2020. On 29th April 2020, our College also released a press statement to the general public on the “Use of Over-the-Counter COVID-19 Test Kits”, explaining the risks associated with false positives and false negatives of the point-of-care test kits based on IgG and IgM antibodies. Apart from numerous reports in various newspapers, our College also noted about 40,000 ‘shares’ on social media.
Different parts of College Examinations have been or will be conducted from July to September 2020. It is challenging to conduct examinations in a pandemic situation, but with the approval from the Academy Council, Colleges are allowed to conduct examinations using telecommunication technology where appropriate and possible. I would like to thank our External Examiners, Chief Examiners, Deputy Chief Examiner and Local Examiners in advance for their tremendous effort in making it possible for the College Examinations to be conducted as scheduled.
Finally, allow me to wish you all ‘good health’ going forward !
Dr. CHAN Ho Ming
President
Volume 28, Issue 2 (click here to download the full pdf version)
Message from the President
Dear Fellows and Members,
In this issue of College Newsletter, I have to bring very sad news to all Members and Fellows. Our Past President, Dr. Michael Suen passed away peacefully on 6 January 2020 after battling against cancer for over 2 years. Dr. Suen was a leader with traditional Chinese wisdom, an excellent practising pathologist, a resourceful and encouraging mentor, a good friend with whom you can share your feelings, a caring husband and father. He was a great role model for our community, College, trainees, colleagues and his family members. We will never forget his smiling face and warm words of encouragement, in particular, during times of difficulty. May Dr. Suen rest in peace.
On the other hand, there is a series of good news for our College in the past year. The breaking good news is the award of Professor Dennis Lo, Li Ka Shing Professor of Chemical Pathology, who was admitted as Honorary Fellow of The Hong Kong Academy of Medicine in December 2019 in recognition of his contribution to the field of cell-free plasma DNA for non-invasive prenatal and cancer diagnostics.
The second good news is the award of Distinguished Young Fellows 2019 to Dr. Elaine Au, Consultant Immunologist and Dr. David Christopher Lung, Consultant Microbiologist. They received the award from Professor CS Lau, Academy President, in September 2019.
The third good news is the successful Membership Examination and Fellowship Assessment for candidates in Anatomical Pathology, Chemical Pathology, Clinical Microbiology and Infection, Forensic Pathology as well as Haematology in August and September 2019.
The fourth good news is the successful completion of the First Fellow Assessment for candidates in Genetic and Genomic Pathology in October 2019. The College Examinations could not have been successfully conducted without the help of our External Examiners, Chief Examiners and Local Examiners. During the past months of social unrest, some of our External Examiners were not able to come to Hong Kong physically. Tele-communication was adopted to be the alternative option by the College and Academy. Thank you for the hard work and contributions from all examiners.
The fifth good news would be the award of The DS Nelson Trainee Oral Prize to Dr. Timothy Cheng, at the ‘Pathology Update 2019’ Conference in Melbourne. The title of his presentation was ‘Noninvasive Detection of Bladder Cancer by Shallow-Depth Genome-Wide Bisulfite Sequencing of Urinary Cell-Free DNA for Methylation and Copy Number Profiling’.
In this issue, the Topic Update was on “Recent Advances in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia “ by Dr. Albert Sin, and the Out of the White Coat Interviewee was Dr. Clarence Lam, Consultant Haematologist.The International Pathology Day Pre-Workshop was conducted to induce medical students to explore various disciplines of pathology in November 2019. Again due to social unrest, the International Pathology Day was postponed to a Saturday before Christmas when it was successfully conducted at the Pathology Teaching Laboratory of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital.
Finally, let me wish all of you a Prosperous Chinese New Year of the Rat!
Dr. CHAN Ho Ming
President