Page 63 - HKU Surgery 110 Anniversary E-Book

Chapter III. Putting Hong Kong Surgery on the World Map

Patients under Orders

A Different Culture Patient consent was cursory in the would undergo one of Ong’s radical
1960s, 1970s and even later, when
operations:
many patients were poorly educated
and from low-income backgrounds “The patient was shaking and said,
The heavy patient load and manpower you do whatever feels comfortable. A (Hong Kong did not introduce ‘Professor Ong, I don’t think I can go

shortage meant new graduates and patient arrives in the middle of the compulsory education until the through with this’. GB said to him,
junior staff had to pick up the slack night with a lacerated face, and if 1970s). The senior nurse would ‘You need this operation’. The patient
and perform procedures that would be you feel comfortable to suture it, you inform patients when it was their said, ‘I can’t have it. I won’t have it’.
unthinkable today. do. You don’t have to call for a senior. day to be operated on and that was GB said, ‘You will have it’. Then the
When I was houseman, there were not about it. Surgeons would decide the patient said, ‘Even if I die, I won’t have
“When I was a houseman, we were many surgeons on call at night. I best treatment. And if the surgeon this operation.’ And Professor Ong
allowed to do an appendectomy was even taught how to do a c-section. was GB Ong, there was no room for roared back, ‘Even if you die, I will
depending on how able and keen we Nowadays you have to be a specialist. questions, as Professor John Boey operate on you!’ That was consent.
were. You might do 10 or more by the Everything is protocol training. In a witnessed when a patient was told he Those were cowboy days.”

time you finished. We also assisted way that’s good, but then the learning
surgeons or senior surgeons to do curve is longer,” he said.

more difficult operations. That sort
of experience doesn’t happen today. The downside of this approach was
Housemen in their first year after the huge workload. House Officers Professor CH Leong was the third member (after
graduation rotate through many were on-call every two to three days Professors F Stock and GB Ong) of the Department
things and they have a lot of non- with no compensation leave on top to be invited to deliver the Hunterian Lecture at

clinical work, like writing up patient of their regular duties; their lives the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
history. And nobody would dare give became work-sleep-work. “It was a
a junior something like appendix very busy life. I lost 10 pounds [4.5
removal in case they get sued,” said kilos] in my first three months. But
Professor KH Lam, who graduated in you turn into someone with a sense

1970. of responsibility,” said Professor
Paul Tam, who graduated in the late
Professor William Wei, who graduated 1970s. The intense life also promoted
in 1974, found there was freedom a sense of camaraderie among staff.

to just get on with things because
basically there was no one else to do
the job. “When you start surgery,

Professor Simon Law (left), Professor Leong Che-Hung (middle),
and Professor Albert Chan (right) at the black-tie dinner of the
Inaugural Lecture of Leong Che-Hung Distinguished Visiting
Professorship in Leadership on 28 February 2025.

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