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“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” asks Professor Lee, quoting T.S. Eliot.
And well he may ask, given the enormous advances in medical knowledge and technical know-how in recent years.
“There’s been an information explosion not only in technology, but in diagnostics, in imaging – an x-ray has turned into an ultrasound, has turned into a CT scan, has changed into an MRI and so on and students are being bombarded with ever-increasing information and technical details,” he says.
“Students want to learn as much factual information as possible because they feel this is the way to become a doctor. I do not agree, this has been inculcated into their minds a long time ago and I think this is almost universal, but in Hong Kong it is intensified.
“Kids from a very young age are encouraged to study, listen to their teachers, do their homework so they can earn high scores and go to good schools and good universities and get a good job. They are spoon fed in an almost pressure cooker environment and don’t learn how to question, not just scientific questions, but philosophical questions.”
“Because of the demands of the curriculum and advances in technology the younger generation of doctors run the danger of practicing like robots,” he adds. “There is an erosion of their humanitarian qualities, their compassion for patients. We don’t listen to patients very carefully anymore, we stare at the computer screen and type on the keyboard instead of looking into the patient’s eyes and asking caring questions.”
And he confesses, “I think this has reached an unacceptable level. We process patients almost like commodities. We are but prescription machines and triaging technicians for diagnostic tests and procedures. This is my fear and I feel that a dose of humanities, ethics and mindfulness would make our students into more mature, better human beings, and it is my belief that better human beings make better doctors.” |
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He believes today’s students are too young to become doctors, “That is not a derogative or negative term, they are young,” he says. “With the early admission scheme some are around 17 and how do you train a 17-year-old to become a doctor? They don’t quite understand human suffering, the hopes and fears of a patient, or what dying is. Their life experience is not quite adequate and therefore I think a good education in the liberal arts would strengthen that part.”
The new, modified curriculum offers a terrific opportunity to remedy this with medicine taking six years instead of five to complete.
“In the first two years I would require to have a 25% distribution of subjects which are non-medical, and which cover the humanities. In year three I will require them to take an elective exchange. They need to move away from Hong Kong because this is global medicine and to be global you have to be physically immersed in the culture.
“These students can go to the high-tech medical centres in Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard or Stanford, or they may choose to go to South America, India, Africa. The village is a wonderful ward and clinic and they can witness human suffering in a totally unfiltered way. I hope this will be a life changing experience for them.”
In the fourth, fifth and sixth years medical ethics, law and integrity will be introduced as well as mindfulness, death, dying and bereavement.
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The students will be further provided with selected literary texts, including Wuthering Heights, Middlemarch and Macbeth and a range of writings by physicians.
“So that would be the curriculum,” says Professor Lee. “But I think there’s nothing more powerful than leading by example, and whenever I get a chance to chat with the students I read them a poem. One year I wrote them a poem entitled Sunset at Sassoon Road.”
Reflecting on his two years as Dean he adds, “There has been positive, spontaneous feedback that has charged my faith in what we are doing. Change is always painful. But an organization, whether it’s a business or a university, must from time to time reinvent itself. This is a terrific opportunity forus to do so and for the medical profession it is timely. It’s not only important I think it is essential to add humanity back to medicine.” |
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| Professor Sum-ping Lee being awarded the 2010 |
| Distinguished Achievement Award by the American |
| Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. |
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