Honorary University Fellows

An excerpt from the Vice-Chancellor's Address delivered at the Honorary University Fellowships Presentation Ceremony on December 10, 1998:

Dr Li Shu Pui graduated from the University of Hong Kong with a medical degree in 1928. He then went on to Edinburgh and Vienna to receive training as a specialist in ear, nose and throat diseases. In 1930 he was the first graduate from our University to be awarded a Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh. After further studies in ear, nose and throat and General Surgery in Vienna, he returned to Hong Kong to begin his medical practice, a practice which has lasted for over six decades and continues today. He still sees patients in his private clinic. He is truly an outstanding example of a medical entrepreneur. 

In 1931, Dr Li and his brother, Dr Li Shu Fan, worked together to build up the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital. The hospital then had only 28 beds; today it is the largest private general hospital in Hong Kong. Moreover Dr Li has seen to it that the hospital is provided with state-of-the-art equipment; today the Hong Kong Sanatorium is widely recognized as the premier private hospital in the SAR. Dr Li is also an enthusiastic supporter of medical education; he started the nursing and midwifery school in the hospital in order to help fulfil the needs of the community. 

Dr Li has shown important qualities of leadership. During the Second World War he assumed a leading role in the collaboration between the Hong Kong Medical Association and the Chinese Red Cross to provide assistance to the Chinese army. He also played an important role in the work of the Federation of Medical Societies, formed to co-ordinate the activities of 60 medical and paramedical societies and to promote the advancement of medical sciences.