Bulletin Spring‧Summer 1999

to 1989 and since 1996, was the founding chair of the Department o f Mo r b id Anatomy (now renamed Department of Anatomical and Cellular Pathology). He pointed out that the emphasis of the faculty's curriculum both then and now is on nurturing a 'cultured physician', a physician who has all the makings of an educated person and the essential medica l knowledge for the practice o f medicine, and who embodies the ethics befitting the profession. Students are trained in the basic medical sciences for the first two years, and are given a chance to use their knowledge on patients from the third. Small group teaching is practised so that students can use their teachers as role models. In recent years, importance has also been laid on evidence-based med i c i ne , or evidence f o r practices found through clinical research. New Elements in the Medical Curriculum I n the recent curriculum retreat, a major review was carried out on the faculty's teaching and a few areas were targeted for emphasis, namely , small-group teaching, patient-centred learning, self-learning, an d lifelong education. Prof. Lee told the Bulletin that beginning in the coming autumn semester, all first-year medical students w i ll have to take courses in basic computer knowledge to ensure that they have this asset at their disposal in their entire five years o f study. The Faculty of Medicine w i l l also be the first in the world to introduce telemedica l education in its teaching hospital, the Prince of Wales Hospital. Pioneering Research a Unique Feature According to Prof. Lee, the faculty's focus in its earliest days was teaching. Research was very much an individual effort c e n t e r i n g a r ound the academic interests of the teachers. The y began d e v e l o p i n g interest i n research relevant to the local community after 1989 when the then University an d Polytechnic Grants Committee made available funding for the purpose. One un i que feature o f research activities in the faculty has been the development of pioneering research areas. Prof. Lee recalled, 'We were a young and progressive bunch. We we r e n ' t content w i t h j u s t do i ng Profile of Prof. Joseph Lee Born in Chungking, Prof. Joseph C.K. Lee received his MBBS from the University of Hong Kong in 1964 and his Ph.D. in pathology from the University of Rochester, New York in 1970. He joined the Faculty of Medicine in 1982 as founding chair of the Department of Morbid Anatomy. He will retire in July 1999. Prof. Lee is vice-president (Asia) of the international Academy of Pathology, and honorary professor of Beijing Medical University, the People's Liberation Army General Hospital in Beijing, the Sun Yat Sen University of Medical Sciences, and Shantou University. He is well-known for his contribution to research on precancerous changes in the human nasopharynx, ferritin in transplantable hepatomas, and the structure of chromosomes and cytogenetics. Innovative Treatment of Peptic Ulcers The treatment of peptic ulcers has traditionally been concentrated on suppressing acid secretion in the stomach by long-term medication or surgery . But ever since a bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, was found in the stomach of a vast majority of patients suffering from peptic ulcers, the University's Faculty of Medicine has since 1992 begun studying the use of antibiotics to treat HP infection. As a result, in over 90 percent of patients put on a weeklong course of antibiotic, the ulcer healed, and in 90 per cent of those, there was no reinfection within a year. This medical breakthrough changed the traditional method of treating peptic ulcers which had been used for some 200 years. It reduced the need for surgery and long-term medication was no longer necessary. Medical Teaching and Research at CUHK 3