Speech at the Diploma Conferment Ceremony
The College of Paediatricians
on 11 December 2004
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by
Dr C H Leong
President, Hong Kong Academy of Medicine

          May I begin by congratulating the New Fellows of the College of Paediatrics. Today is your proud moment as you move to your career goal of becoming a specialist in paediatiric. Your President has made encouraging and praise worthy remarks just now on my job as the President of the Academy, I thank him for those sumptuous words of praise.

          I am being reminded of the words of Voltaire a French philosopher “The history of the world’s great leaders is offer the story of human folly”. Yet I am also comforted by what Isaac Newton said “ If I can see further, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants”. Mr. President, you and all in the Academy are the giants on whose shoulders I can always rely to stand on.

           Mr. President, it is time for me to returning compliments to you and your College. For the last 10 years your College has taken a pivotal role in promoting not only the standards of paediatric services, but also the brotherhood of child care health workers through working in close collaboration with the different child care societies. The paediatric community must be one of the role models where “town and gown” are working hard in hard. This it should be. For if you believe that “If there is no children there will be no adults”, then your College and your Fellows have a heavy responsibility ahead.

           It may be said that with the marked decline in birth rate in HK, paediatricians may well lose their importance. This is erroneous. For one, the ambit of paediatricians new extends to 16 years old. For another, decreasing birth rate means each new borne, each child, is a very previous child. Furthermore with less in number, each child of today will have to bear a bigger responsibility of running the society and support the enlarging elderly mass in the future. Each child has to be more healthy, and more physically and mentally robust.

           The society of HK has not been kind of our children – unwanted babies, adolescent suicide and child abuses frequent our newspapers headlines. Our paediatricians today therefore must take on the role not just as a skillful clinician, a convincing negotiator, an effective social worker but also a meticulous modern Sherlock Holmes – detecting any early signs of suicidal tendencies and any evidence of child abuse to prevent more major trauma that may follow.

           And there is more. If you believe that prevention is better than cure, if you believe that a healthy child of today is a productive adult of tomorrow, you must stand up and take on the role of a staunch health advocate. It is an undeniable fact that tobaccos smoking is the cause of lung diseases, bronchogenic carcinoma, coronary diseases and even bladder tumours, even for those who are subjected to other peoples’ smoke. It is a well known fact too that nicotine is addictive. We also know very well too that despite what the tobaccos industry preaches, they are doing their best to target the young age to enlarge the smokers mass. For years the health care profession and the responsible community has been calling for ways and means to stop the harm that tobacco will bring, to promulgate legislation to ban children and nonsmoker from being seduce into take up the despicably habit and to protect the public from the contaminating of second hand smoke. Regrettably whilst our Government is in support of these health measures, it has been dragging its feet – very little action has so far been visualized. Nor has our legislators, the peoples representative, been doing their job in pushing the Government to do so. You must therefore take the advocacy position of health into your own hands, behest the Government to do what is good for the public. The health care profession and the Academy will be in this war with you all the way.

          Yes in less than a weeks’ time, I will be demitting office having serve the Council of the Academy for 12 years with 4 years as President. As I have mentioned before, I will be leaving the office with a light heart knowing very well that a stoic foundation has been set and that all our 15 Colleges are fully matured to be the standard bearers of the specialty each represent. The Academy with the Colleges can therefore only improve and make head ways in the days to come.