Dear College Fellows, Members and Associates,lauyl

Being your President for the past three years is like a journey with you, exploring possibilities and realizing dreams that bind us together, for achieving our College motto 育才健幼 .

The journey as any journey has seen her share of ups and downs.  Nevertheless, the ups seem to be more.  The three years journey is a continuation of the previous 24 years of our College history contributed and made possible by countless of you, as council and committee members, trainers and trainees, seniors and juniors, private and public paediatricians, and in sum the general fellowship and membership.  Many of us have been through a number of these labels, as these are merely milestones of our continuing journey in the College.  I sincerely hope each one of us remembers one’s own journey through these developmental stages which constitute part of our life journey.

For me, I shall remember our Council and Committees in the past three years have tried hard to realize the following dreams though may not be to the satisfaction of all of you, but we collectively have endeavored.

The first dream is to explore ways to engage and empower our young and next generation, as they are our hope and future.  Our Young Fellows Group has evolved into a Committee, which is sending representatives to sit in the Academy counterpart structure, nominating young fellows to participate in various functions.  They also proactively initiated forums for the general fellowship to discuss and prepare consensus statements, including one on influenza and another one on Academy representation in the Medical Council.  During our 25th Anniversary, the Young Fellows wrote and edited the publication “Nurturing Growing – a Journey of 25 years”, comprising interviews with our senior fellows and memorable photos taken by College fellows. The latest endeavor for the Young Fellows is to identify the milestones to be achieved by our basic and higher trainees for our review of training and assessment (T&A).  The two and a half years journey of T&A review including the roadshows to the training units has reinforced our view that the core value we must hold dear to our heart is the sincere and honest relationship between the trainer and trainee during their learnings to acquire the attitude, skills and knowledge necessary.  Of course we need the various infrastructures to enable this and to overcome various barriers.  The aim is to provide a safe, non-judgmental and constructive learning environment for our trainees. 

The second dream is to find means to collaborate with sister organizations as this is the only way forward for us.  Our College has taken an active role in partnering with the Hong Kong Paediatric Society (HKPS) and many local paediatric subspecialty societies to organize scientific meetings, including the joint Annual Scientific Meeting with HKPS and the 13th Congress of the Asian Society for Paediatric Research (ASPR) in 2017 with all the local and some overseas paediatric societies.  The ASPR Congress has attracted over 900 delegates with one-third from our local community.  This journey of engagement has taught many of us many good lessons and empowered us including our secretariats to grow and develop new skills.  This spirit of collaboration needs to be strengthened and joint activity becomes regular.

The third dream is to maintain and strengthen unity within our College in the face of the unprecedented election of our office-bearers in 2018.  We collectively are learning together how to conduct this election in a fair, transparent and dignified manner.  Our Council has set up new rules to govern the election process and forums were organized to engage the general fellowship face-to-face with the nominees.  Again this journey of election has pushed many of us to reflect on our roles in the College and why we should be here doing what we are doing as well as what else we should explore.  We also reflected on the role of our College amidst the complex relationship with Hospital Authority and Government as they provide the physical training units.  At the end of this journey, the end result becomes immaterial as we learnt together and shared our dreams with our general fellowship and membership during the two forums, mapping out the future direction.  The engagement, the reflection and the experience gained through this journey has already made our College much stronger and more mature in dealing with challenges.  With unity, we shall prevail.

Finally, I acknowledge with gratitude and sincerity the countless hours of dedication and work contributed by our Council and Committee members as documented in detail in their various reports.  These activities are the life-blood and basic household metabolism of our College, without which we will not exist.  Many of you outside the Council and Committees have also contributed enormously to the College endeavors in different capacities, as speakers, trainers, participants of meetings and forums, readers of our Journal and last but not least, our secretaries.

To you all, I am most grateful and feel blessed with your companionship during the past three years of my College journey.

 

Prof. Yu Lung LAU
President
30 October 2018

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