A New Era Begins 1975-78

community medicine. Hopefully our students will thus become more community-minded and see the need for their services in the public sector whether as a general practitioner, a specialist or a community physician. It is also intended to prepare some of them for an academic career so that by taking up teaching appointments they will fill another need in the public service. It should be possible to assign some selected students some minor roles in research programmes. When the faculty is fully developed and after the graduation of the first batch of students, postgraduate training programmes in the various departments will be organized. It is further hoped that eventually the medical school will be able to offer continuing education not only for our own students, but for all practitioners serving in the East New Territories region. For instance, refresher courses and seminars conducted annually at our medical school, on campus or in the hospital, would serve the purpose expeditiously. It is the aim of the education programme in every medical school to give the students a broad education in both the theory and the practice of medicine. Students are expected to learn not only from books and lecture notes, but also from practical demonstrations ； indeed, less of the former and more of the latter is better for them. They should be taught to observe and think rather than use their memory to assimilate knowledge. In this new Medical School, it will be the responsibility of all teachers to use these methods of teaching right from the start. They will be helped by having facilities such as multi-disciplinary laboratories, audio-visual aid laboratories, seminar rooms and clinical investigation areas. The reasons for taking a different approach, and the philosophy behind our education programme, are to produce a new breed of doctors for Hong Kong who are willing to spend their entire career in the service of the Medical and Health Department or the University instead of entering private practice after biding their time in hospital posts for a limited period. This will be no easy task in the circumstances of Hong Kong where success in all walks of life is measured in terms of wealth and material gain. But it is the same the world over, and the attempt must be made even though it involves changing people's way of thinking and their concept of earning a good living. I have high hopes that wi th a staff of energetic and dedicated teachers and the right kind of students, we shall not only produce more doctors to serve in the medical and health services in Hong Kong, but make a significant contribution towards medical education. We aspire to achieve what other countries of the region have achieved in the past twenty-five years, as we shall presently hear about. 53