Message from College President 

 

Prof Simon LAM Protrait v2

Even before embarking on our careers as paediatricians we appreciate how diverse children and young people are physically, mentally and socially. Not only do we have to account for wide variations terms of physiological, anatomical and pathological processes, as a professional group we also take care of the varied psychosocial needs of those who seek our help. We operate at all levels of healthcare from the community to subspecialty care services and from frontline clinical care to cutting-edge research settings. It is the responsibility of our College to ensure that paediatricians are well-equipped to meet these varied demands.

To achieve high quality training that meets the diverse needs of children and young people of Hong Kong, we believe that our paediatric training network must be well-coordinated and inclusive. Recently, the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine issued their Gender Diversity Policy, which underscores the importance of diversity at institutional level (https://www.hkam.org.hk/sites/default/files/PDFs/(2022)%20Gender%20Diversity%20Policy.pdf). In the document it is stated that greater inclusivity includes but is “not limited to gender, age, cultural and educational background, ethnicity, professional experience, skills, knowledge and length of service”.

An essential component of any training programme is its curriculum. Co-led by curriculum review workgroup co-chairs Dr SP Wu and Dr Winnie Tse, the curriculum review workgroup has completed the third stage consultation for our general paediatric programme. As our workgroup continues to actively engage our stakeholders, we also encourage you to visit our dedicated website (https://www.hkpaedcr.paediatrician.org.hk/) to peruse the materials and provide us with comments and suggestions. The importance of this new curriculum cannot be overstated as it will shape the accreditation framework, what our trainees’ learning outcomes will be and how we assess our trainees, trainers and training units.

On the paediatric subspecialty front, Prof CK Li and Dr Frankie Cheng have been working hard on guiding its development at College level. During the interim review of subspecialty development led by Dr CW Chan in 2019, several issues were identified, e.g., poor sustainability, adverse impact on general paediatric and subspecialty services and inadequate recognition of subspecialty services in non-subspecialty units. After implementing several technical solutions and adjusting the pace of subspecialty accreditation, a further consultative forum was held on 18 June 2022. In the forum, a variety of important operational aspects of Subspecialty Boards as well as the overall direction of paediatric subspecialty development were discussed.

As our College moves into its fourth decade of existence, we have increasingly taken advantage of electronic platforms for educational, administrative and operational purposes. For educational and administrative purposes, our IT subcommittee co-chair, Dr CF Cheng, and his team have tirelessly rolled out the e-portfolio system (https://eps.paediatrician.org.hk/login.php) designed from the ground up with the capability to maintain profiles of trainees and Fellows so that on the one hand trainees can keep track of their progress and on the other hand to facilitate management of training rotations by College administrators, training supervisors and trainers. Meanwhile our Honorary Treasurer, Dr NC Fong, has setup e-banking functions for our College which will further improve our College’s operational efficiency as well as lead to quality of life improvements.

With best wishes,

Simon

 


 

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