PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

It is my honor to be the president of HKSEMS. For more than thirty-five years, HKSEMS took up an important role for promoting emergency medicine. Our specialty began as a casualty unit in a hospital in 1947, which later formalized into the accident & emergency department after almost thirty-five years. Later, it took another fifteen years for it to become a recognized specialty in the academy in 1997. Throughout the years, our predecessors had contributed significantly to the development of this very unique specialty. I will endeavor to continue their efforts in this career. 

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We had a tough time in the past two years, the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted our activities. The physical exchange with regional EM colleagues came to a halt. Many of our activities were moved to virtual platform. This also posed a great challenge for us as we were the organizer of the biennial ACEM conference this year. Thanks to the unfailing efforts of the organizing committee and the scientific committee, the conference was successfully held in December, with up to 650 participants joining the event. Though the pandemic created a physical distance between us, it could not stop us from joining together for the betterment of EM development. Looking into the coming year, we hope the increase in vaccination rate can protect the population from the virus infection and lead to gradual normalization of daily life.  

With resumption of conventional activities, we will reestablish physical connection with our regional EM colleagues as soon as possible. Meeting-up through virtual media cannot not replace the real-life face-to-face interaction. As a society in emergency medicine, it is also one of our responsibilities to promote to the general public basic EM related health messages. While we will carry out such activities through online social media, human interaction is also essential for effective understanding and learning of knowledge. It is hoped that physical talks can be held in the coming year so as to draw the connection between us and the public closer. 

And finally, after such a prolonged period of working and meeting your colleagues under the mask, it will be wonderful if all of us can take off the mask and meet face-to-face in the upcoming gatherings and events. 

 

Looking forward to meeting you face-to-face in the coming year.