"A Matter of Life and Death : Development of Emergency Medicine" in Subject talks on "Centred on People : Specialist Healthcare Services and Everyday Life"

Publication Date: 2023-10-26

Co-organised by TWGHs Records and Heritage Office and Hong Kong Public Libraries

Dr WONG Tai-wai (Former Consultant of Accident & Emergency Department of Kwong Wah Hospital and former President of Hong Kong College of Emergency Medicine)

September 16, 2023 

"A Matter of Life and Death : Development of Emergency Medicine" in Subject talks on "Centred on People : Specialist Healthcare Services and Everyday Life"

The Accident & Emergency (A&E) Department is the gateway to a hospital. People with all sorts of health conditions walk through its doors and are never turned away. How do the A&E doctors race against the clock to save patients from the brink of death? Hong Kong’s earliest A&E Department was established in Queen Mary Hospital in 1947. Before the Second World War, how were medical emergencies handled? After the war, Emergency Medicine has gone through various stages of development. In 1997, the Hong Kong College of Emergency Medicine became a member of the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine, and training of specialists in Emergency Medicine was normalised. How do specialists in Emergency Medicine learn the many skills they are required to have? This talk will give you a glimpse of the A&E Department while illustrating the history of Emergency Medicine as well as its relationship with Hong Kong's social development.