Page 8 - CUHK MEDICAL ALUMNI Newsletter Issue 1 Vol 13 2020

SPECIAL FEATURE

Opportunity of a Lifetime

畢生難得的機會

Hong Kong Children’s Hospital taps
into experience of two highly qualified
CUHK alumni to set up paediatric
surgery department.

hen two alumni of The CUHK’s Faculty of Medicine
were asked to be part of the Hong Kong Children’s
W Hospital (HKCH), they did not hesitate. After all,
they had the qualifications and expertise to make the new
hospital a centre of excellence for the care of children.

Dr. Michael LEUNG had worked for in the commissioning programme on
Queen Elizabeth Hospital for nearly three surgical services in HKCH since 2012. “It
decades and was a Consultant Paediatric is the translocation of paediatric surgery
Surgeon and Division Head of Paediatric services in Hong Kong. We began
Surgery until his appointment as HKCH’s designing for the operating theatre, gave
Chief of Service of the Department of advice on the setting up of the wards as
Surgery. well as on the purchasing of equipment-
like the minimally invasive surgical
Dr. Peter TAM is currently a consultant in machines. We needed to centralise
paediatric surgery of both Prince of Wales complex surgical services like neonatal
Hospital (PWH) and HKCH. He also heads surgery and oncological surgery to
PWH’s Division of Paediatric Surgery & HKCH.”
Paediatric Urology. He sits on the Board
Dr. LEUNG also travelled overseas to
of Paediatric Surgery and is the Chief study how children's hospitals operated,
Examiner.
including a visit to the top-ranking
American facility, the Boston Children’s
HKCH not just a hospital-based Hospital.
project
Given their vast experiences in paediatric Merging different paediatric centres
surgery, they were invited to participate poses immense challenges
in workgroups - years before HKCH Dr. TAM, who sat in the sub-specialty
opened for service in December 2018 workgroup of paediatric surgery during
- on how to come up with solutions to the commissioning period, says they
merge different paediatric surgical centres had to find ways to smoothly merge the
and to enhance quality care in the field of existing paediatric centres. “It was a very
paediatric surgery. complicated process, involving many
departments from different hospitals. How
“It is not just a hospital-based project,” to work with people from another centre
says Dr. LEUNG, who had participated remains a challenge for me.”