Page 5 - CUHK MEDICAL ALUMNI Newsletter Issue 2 Vol 6 2017

FEATURES
04

LAW STUDIES DEEPEN DOCTOR’S

UNDERSTANDING OF THE REAL MEANING

OF RESPECTING PATIENTS’ AUTONOMY

”Studying law within the realm of medicine made ”Studying law within the realm of medicine
me a more caring and better doctor, and not a made me a more caring and better doctor,
and not a defensive one. It improved
defensive one.” my communication with patients and

- Dr Danny Lee Wai-hung made me understand what is meant by
respecting a patient’s autonomy.”
（李偉雄醫生, MBChB 1991） Dr Lee is sometimes called on to provide
expert reports to the Hong Kong
Medical Council, civil courts and the
r Danny Lee can easily be mistaken for Hospital and then was transferred to Coroner’s Court. ”My legal studies have
Da lawyer - he has three law degrees North District Hospital where he worked given me more confidence in reading
under his cap. But he insists: ”I’m not a until 2003. and writing such reports.”
lawyer and am not intending to be one.”
That year he volunteered to retire under a He is also an accredited mediator.
Dr Lee says he loves medicine and scheme offered by the HA and went into
would not give it up for anything. But private practice. Dr Lee is a part-time lecturer at CUHK,
admits he has a deep ”passion” for teaching medical legal ethics to
medical legal ethics, or bioethics - a It was only after he left the public sector undergraduates and postgraduates.
field that looks into ethical issues in that Dr Lee had more time to do the He says CUHK, without a doubt, had
healthcare, medicine and other wider things he wanted. After achieving his taught him about curiosity - to always ask
perspectives like human surrogacy. doctorate in medicine (MD) in 2005, he questions about everything. ”And, I believe
decided to turn to bioethics.
When he was a medical undergraduate that by including general education in its
at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, When he first took up medical law he medical syllabus, CUHK has helped me
bioethics was not a subject per se. ”In found himself grappling to understand develop an all-round personality.”
those days, we only had one or two hours a lot of the materials. He realised he His advice: ”Keep an open mind and
of lectures on basic medical ethics and needed a strong legal background if he have interests other than medicine.”
medical law...that was it,” he says. intended to go forward. So he enrolled
for a part-time course in general law at
the City University of Hong Kong because
it was closer to his private practice.

He remembers those ”tough” days -
a surgeon during the day and a law
student in the evening. On top of that,
he had ward rounds. Despite the
hectic schedule, he persevered for
four and a half years.
Dr Lee says he is particularly
keen on the issue of informed
consent. ”Previously, we just
got the patients to sign a
But that passion to study more about
bioethics remained deeply ingrained in document and then took
them in for the operation.
Dr Lee but he had to keep that burning This practice has changed.
desire to pursue it on hold.
From the biomedical ethics
After graduating, he spent 11 years point of view, informed
with the Hospital Authority. He spent a consent means to explain, in
year at Johns Hopkins University, from detail, the medical procedure to
1996-1997, returned to Prince of Wales the patient and the risks involved.”