Page 52 - HKU Surgery 110 Anniversary E-Book

Chapter II: Hong Kong’s First Academic Surgical Unit

1945-48 Dr John Gray, MA MB, MCh, MRCS, FRCS, FACS, LRCP, was a
graduate of Cambridge University and Guy’s Hospital who led the Department The “Hong Kong Operation”
of Surgery from 1945-48 and was also Acting Head of Surgery at Queen
Mary Hospital and later honorary surgeon at Tung Wah East Hospital. He
left a favourable impression on his students. In 1974, a donation from Dr Stock’s encouragement of specialisation quickly
Harry Fang established the John Gray Medal in his honour, still awarded paid off when the orthopaedics team developed
to the student who scores the aggregated highest marks in surgery in the the world-renowned “Hong Kong Operation”.
final MBBS exam. Professor GB Ong assisted Dr Gray as a house officer at Stock had recruited Professor AR Hodgson from
Queen Mary Hospital. the UK to lead the new Orthopaedic and Trauma
Unit in 1951. In the mid-1950s, they created a
1948-63 Professor Francis Stock, MBBS, FRCS, FACS, DTM&H, studied ground-breaking anterior approach for spinal
at King’s College and worked in Edinburgh before joining the Colonial tuberculosis. Stock himself opened the path to the
Medical Service. When he was appointed the second full-time Professor spine from the front, which gave Hodgson access
of Surgery at HKU in 1948, he was already a well-established scholar. In to treat the disease. The first paper on their results
1951 he was invited to deliver the Hunterian Lecture at the Royal College was published in 1956 . In 1961, another paper
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of Surgeons of England, in which he spoke on the surgical treatment of co-authored by Dr Harry Fang, a future giant in
cirrhosis of the liver. Hong Kong orthopaedics, and Professor GB Ong,
a future giant in Hong Kong surgery, detailed a
In 1952, Stock developed an alternative method for peptic ulcer that involved pioneering trans-oral approach to the spine, going Professor Francis E Stock.
vagotomy and pylorectomy, in contrast to the usual treatment of resection through the mouth to reach the cervical spine .
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of a significant amount of the stomach which carried untoward side effects;
his results contributed to the establishment of the technique as a treatment
of choice globally . Stock enjoyed sailing – he was Commodore of the Royal
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Hong Kong Yacht Club from 1957 to 1963, the year he left Hong Kong to
become Professor of Surgery at the University of Liverpool. He was made
CBE in 1977.

“The days of the general surgeon are over and it is no longer feasible, even if it were
desirable, for one man to cover the entire surgical field adequately.”
- Professor Francis Stock, extracted from
the HKU Medical Society’s Elixir magazine in 1950 - Professor Arthur Ralph Hodgson.

The first of a series of Hodgson-and-Stock papers on spinal
tuberculosis. Adapted from British Journal of Surgery, 1956.

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