Volume 14, Issue 1
Message from the President
Why Pathology Matters? A word to the new pathologists at the 13th Admission Ceremony I wish to extend my warmest congratulations to all soon to be admitted new Fellows and Members of the College. Your success in becoming a specialist is especially welcome and somewhat relieving in times when the prospect of shortage of pathologists is worrisome, when we may edging towards the global trend of manpower insufficiency in pathologists as in many developed countries.
Sometimes I wonder, from the day you decide to take up pathology as your career, what have been your responses to the all-too-familiar question of your parents or friends, when they say: “Well, very good, you want to become a pathologist, but don’t you want to be a REAL doctor? Don't you want to take care of patients? Do you really like dead bodies that much?"
Volumn 14, Issue 2
Message from the President
One year ago, I had a special meeting with the Pathology Division of the Chinese Medical Association (中華醫學會病理分會) (CMAPD) – not quite a College equivalent but this one is the closest – in Jinan, Shandong, to introduce the College work, particularly on our system of training and examinations. While in many areas, such as in organizing educational programmes or developing professional standards and practice guidelines, we can work further together, I came out from the meeting with an impression that at present there is quite a significant difference in “professional autonomy” between Hong Kong and China Mainland, so that professional bodies there, and not just the CMAPD, are not going to organize independent specialist examinations or training accreditation any time soon. (Remarkably, in a separate session, the CMAPD had also invited the President and Council representatives of the Royal College of Pathologists of the United Kingdom for similar discussions.)
Volumn 14, Issue 3
Message from the President
In the past one year the College sees many interesting and challenging developments. For the start, as outlined in the last President’s Message, the rapid growth in the mainland has brought us both opportunities and areas of concerns. The Minister of Health of China, in a recent visit to Hong Kong, has made it clear that he wishes the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine and its member Colleges to share their experience on training, admission and accreditation of specialists with the mainland counterparts, with a view to establish a model for the mainland as soon as possible. With this objective, an Academy delegation, in which I served as the College representative, visited Beijing in May, closely followed by another similar visit in July, and a reciprocal visit of the Ministry of Health’s delegation in August to the Academy and several Colleges, including pathology, and training centres in Queen Elizabeth Hospital. During these visits, we have had detailed discussions on training contents, supervision of training, accreditation of training units, training posts, and organization of examinations and CME/CPD. To address some important differences in pathology practices between the two places, we tried to make use of the opportunities to convince our counterpart that a broader scope for the profession, taking on board all pathology specialties, that is led by medically trained pathologists, rather than non-medical professionals as could be the case in some disciplines in the mainland, should be the best way forward.