Volume 31, Issue 1 (click here to download the full pdf version)
Message from the President
It gave me great pleasure in writing this message, as the College Newsletter always has a special place in my heart.
It seems like yesterday when I first joined the College Council and took up the College Newsletter Chief Editor position in 2004. It has come a long way for the College newsletter to evolve from a black-and-white hard copy, to the current colourful electronic soft copy. I still remember the days when the Editorial Board meeting took place in a casual atmosphere in a restaurant in Admiralty, how the name “Pathologue” was proposed by the scholarly Dr LOO Ka Tai, and how the various new ideas were born through members of the Editorial Board. I am happy to see the continuous development of the newsletter over the subsequent years.
The COVID-19 pandemic has revolutionalized the practice of medicine. Various College meetings have been conducted via teleconferencing, and such practice has extended to the participation by External Examiners in various College examinations, and to Trainee Presentation Session in form of a hybrid mode. Later this year, I shall also join the International Liaison of Pathology Presidents (ILPP) meeting in Chicago via teleconferencing. The world is changing fast, and our College will adapt to the change. The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed us to embrace technology in our daily practice: teleconferencing, web-based seminars, the possibility of telepathology, just to name a few. Our College shall keep a close look at the latest outbreak situation and the related policy, and adjust our practice accordingly.
We managed to host our College Conferment Ceremony in 2021 despite the COVID-19 outbreak, taking various infection control precautions. For this year, our Annual General Meeting and Conferment Ceremony have been tentatively planned for 26 November 2022 (Saturday): please mark your diary, and we look forward to seeing you all.
Our profession has been facing manpower shortage for some time. The situation has been escalating, with the expansion of services in various pathology specialties and the attrition subsequent to various reasons. Together with the Academy, our College shall aim to uphold the professional standards while considering different options to address the matter.
We are pleased to see an increasing number of trainees and young Fellows in our College. The recent establishment of the Young Fellows Chapter in the Academy and in our College has provided an excellent opportunity to engage our younger generation in Academy’s and College’s activities. Young Fellows have brought in new ideas and have helped to organize various activities, and they are the future of our College.
After several years of preparation, our College rolled out the Genetic and Genomic Pathology training programme last year. More and more trainees have now registered for this programme, and we hope many new Fellows will complete this programme in the near future to cater for the needs of this rapidly expanding field.
The establishment of the Genetic and Genomic Pathology programme has brought our College “Into a New Era”, and it happens that the year 2021 marked the 30th Anniversary of our College. An anniversary book is currently under preparation, and I thank the team from the Professional & General Affairs Committee for their hard work. I also thank all the previous Presidents for their contributions, and this book will certainly become a valuable item of memorabilia.
As College President, I attended the 4th AMM-AMS-HKAM Tripartite Congress & the 55th Singapore-Malaysia Congress of Medicine on 22-24 July 2022 in Singapore virtually. A summary of the event is included in this newsletter.
There are challenges ahead, and let’s ride out the storm together. After all, tomorrow is another day.
Dr. CHAN Chak Lam, Alexander
President