Now that the Department has been founded, Professor Rainer is identifying the best approaches and practices to offer high-quality education. ‘At undergraduate level, we currently collaborate with the Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology to deliver emergency-related teaching. We help some of our medical students, who have taken electives with us, develop their research profiles. In the new curriculum, we are exploring collaboration with the Critical Care Medicine Unit to deliver teaching and training for our medical students across the board,’ said Professor Rainer. ‘Our two PhD students, both being trained neurologists, elected to do stroke research with our department. It is thrilling to have drawn specialists or specialist doctors from other specialties.’ For clinical services, DoEM supports emergency and outpatient departments in three hospitals under HKU Health System – Queen Mary Hospital (QMH), Gleneagles Hospital Hong Kong (GHK) and and the University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital (HKU-SZH) – where it provides emergency clinical care. DoEM also runs community projects supported by the Hong Kong Jockey Club and the Hong Kong government to train the public in basic life support, first aid, and health-related issues. ‘This is probably more the area of service rather than cutting-edge teaching,’ said Professor Rainer, ‘but very important’. Emergency medicine stands firmly at the forefront of medical care, thus on-site practice and patient communication are crucial. ‘In Cardiff, where I worked, and throughout Wales, medical students had the opportunity to be released from normal teaching, and take on contracts with hospitals to meet the incredible challenge of COVID. They would be on-site serving, working, earning, learning and getting immediately prepared for the real world.’ In Hong Kong, however, students were not allowed to practise in person at the emergency departments of public hospitals during the pandemic. In response, teachers strove to arrange virtual meetings with patients and practice sessions at some other hospitals such as Gleneagles Hospital Hong Kong. ‘Real-life practice is hardly replaceable, particularly for emergency medicine. I do hope the practice sessions would resume as soon as the social distancing restrictions are lifted,’ said Professor Rainer. As a new department, there is always plenty to learn. While Hong Kong enjoys a worldrenowned edge in healthcare service administration and protocols, Professor Rainer is keen to look beyond Hong Kong for best practices and experience in other aspects, ‘In terms of hands-on clinical training, for example, the UK has always been a world leader, and still has a tremendous amount to offer. The settings in Australia, Europe, the United States and Singapore are also very advanced, affording us a lot to learn from.’ Capitalising on multi-talents Indeed, recruiting clinical and academic leaders from abroad is an effective way to bring in new ideas. Professor Kyongtae Bae, Chairperson of Diagnostic Radiology, joins HKUMed in April 2022 from his previous positions as Chairman and Professor of Radiology in the University of Pittsburgh in the US. A ‘multipotentialite’ as he describes himself, Professor Bae charted a very special course of career, beginning as a chemical engineering graduate in Korea. Having moved to the US, he attained Master’s in chemical engineering, Master’s and PhD in bioengineering, Doctor of Medicine as well as an MBA, while working hard to support a big family. Apart from clinical research and training in radiology, Professor Bae holds 16 patents and has founded companies in ↑Born in the UK, grew up in Nigeria, and practised in the UK and Hong Kong, Professor Timothy Rainer recommends learning from best practices and experience from around the world, to enhance local healthcare education and services. 生於英國，成長於尼日 利亞，並於英國及香港 工作，譚偉恩教授提倡 學習海外的最佳範例和 經驗，藉以提升本地醫 療教育及服務。 25 HKUMed News Winter 2022
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