Page 40 - HKU Surgery 110 Anniversary E-Book

Chapter II: Hong Kong’s First Academic Surgical Unit

he 1910s were a pivotal period for
surgery in Hong Kong for three
Treasons: the General Medical
Council in Britain finally recognised
doctors trained in Hong Kong (starting
with the Hong Kong College of Medicine
Licentiate, recognised in 1914); the
Faculty of Medicine, which superseded
the College, became one of the three
founding faculties of the new HKU in
1912, offering an MBBS programme and
providing surgery with a solid home;
and Professor Kenelm Digby arrived in
1913 to lay down the planks for future
development and success.

Digby led HKU Surgery for more than 30
years, helping it to consolidate and grow
despite the Faculty’s – and University’s
– continued need for more money and
space and a backdrop of growing turmoil Professor Kenelm Hutchinson Digby.
outside Hong Kong. Under Digby, the
academic surgical unit at HKU advanced
clinical practice, education and research “A university should not be a mere
in the city. He led by example, earning technical school in which students
the respect and warm admiration of are taught a number of facts. It
his students who spoke of him as kind, should be a place in which students
dignified, conscientious and fair. He was learn to think for themselves. A
also an outstanding surgeon who operated university Professor should not be
with perfect anatomical precision and merely a purveyor of knowledge, but
who promoted the “no touch technique” a stimulator of thought.”
and infection prevention – essential in - Professor Digby in the first issue
the era before antibiotics. of Caduceus, 1922 -

Testimonial on Digby.

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