Sports Month

November was a month for sports games.  We had the Oxfam Trialwalker, 2^nd Guangdong Hong Kong and Macau Sports Meet, Family Sports Day and various Joint-Professional tournaments.

The Oxfam Tailwalker 2009 was held on 20-22 November 2009.  There were a total of 18 HKMA teams taking part in the event.  The weather was tremendously cold, dropping to 2°C with the Cold Weather Warning signal hoisted.  I sincerely show my appreciation to all the participants, especially those hurriedly joined the Guangdong sports trip the next day after the long march. 

The 2^nd Guangdong, Hong Kong & Macau Sports Meet was held on 21-22 November 2009 at Guangzhou.  Even though minor episodes like traffic jam and late arrival happened on the first day of the trip, nothing really affected the morale and performance of our athletes.  I also took part in the badminton competition.  There were 5 matches including 3 men’s double and 2 mixed double.  The arena was horrible (that was my description), with basketball and badminton matches playing together at the same area.  Lighting was real bad, with a mixture of dazzling spotlights and sunlight.  The shuttlecocks were of extraordinary slow speed, in contrast to those of slightly on the fast side used for HKMA competitions.  Despite all these, all of us did enjoy the games with both Macau and Guangdong teams.  We managed to beat Macau team with a tight 3:2, while we could hardly manage to excel against the professional performance of Guangdong team.  We were the 1^st runner up in this event.  For the overall results, Guangdong was the overall champion, Hong Kong came second and Macau came third.  Congratulations to all the winners!

The Family Sports Day was held on 28 November 2009 at Stanley Ho Sports Center.  We had doctors participating in exciting events like 400M, 800M and inter-professional relays.  We also had their kids participating in funny events like hop in bag and bean bag throw.  I always enjoyed taking snapshots in the playing field and listening to the cheers from kids while practising their 3-legged race.  I also made some suggestions to our President during the occasion so as to make the event more carnival-like.  It would be more fun and attractive if there were more activities like hotdog booth, marshmallow booth, balloon-twisting, blow-up sliding down etc.  And how about cheering competition with participants from high schools and halls?

By the time you receive this issue, it is almost Christmas.  It is also near the end of the year.  As a New Year gift for the year 2010, attached please find the HKMA pocket diary.  This is the second year we specially produce the diary, which records all planned CME activities for the whole year.  I hope all of you would make good use of the diary and therefore having pleasurable CME trainings all over the year.  

When writing this editorial, a number of events related to the medical profession in the year 2009 came across my mind.  This year, I didn’t have time to do a formal and organized review, as I had to hand in numerous essays and to prepare a written examination for my MBS study.  So the following presents list of event-based snapshots: 

• The introduction of the Elderly Health Care Voucher Scheme, with the need of computer use and on-line registration
• The outbreak of H1N1 Influenza, resulting in the quarantine of hotel residents
• Our President was expelled from the Medical Council and then reinstated
• Beat Drugs Campaigns in HK with the full cooperation of HKMA organizing the Certificate Course for Family doctors and Beat Drugs Schemes of our Community Network
• Pilot Scheme for School Based Voluntary Drug Testing
• 60^th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China
• The ruling of the Medical Council on “Rebate in disguise” and the questionable refusal for review of the case
• The H1N1 Flu Vaccination scheme
• The appointment of Professor SUNG Jao Yiu, Joseph as Vice-Chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong from July 2010

They might not be the “big ten”, as different people would have different perception for the significance of different events.  What are your choices?

(Source: HKMA News December 2009)