The Association of Private Medical Specialists was formed on September 25, 1998, initially under the name of the Society of Medical Specialists Limited six months earlier. The initial call for registration achieved a membership of nearly 700 members and it has grown substantially over the years. It was formed to represent medical specialists in various disciplines in private practice.

The members are registered medical practitioners in Hong Kong with specialist qualifications as registered with the Hong Kong Medical Council and are engaged in private practice. Colleagues in the University or Hospital Authority managing private patients are also welcome to join the Association.

The Association deals with matters like involvement in forming health policies of the government, apart from its regular scientific sessions. It holds a large annual medical conference of various topics every year at its annual general meeting.

President’s Message

The Association of Private Medical Specialists of Hong Kong is incorporated in 1998 as a organisation consisting of medical doctors who are specialists in different fields of medicine and serving in the private sector.

In the dual track public-private healthcare system in Hong Kong, the private medical sector compliments the public sector which is funded by taxpayer money and operating under the one organization of Hospital Authority and assumes an important role to underpin the whole system by operating in an economically free market manner and offering health care to people who chooses to pay for their services out of pocket or through medical insurance payment.

In order that private specialists who are basically free professional agents who provide medical services to their individual patients to work cohesively and effectively within the Hong Kong healthcare system with a high medical standard, an organised body such as our Association is important to help ensure the healthcare environment is right for good private medical practice.

Therefore our Association pays a lot of attention to the changing healthcare environment and healthcare policies that might affect private medical practice. We also provide lots of continuing medical education to doctors to ensure our Hong Kong doctors are well equipped in up-to-date and advanced medical knowledge.

Our Association will also host the Multi-specialty Medical Mega Conference every year. This is a yearly largest multi-specialty meeting in Hong Kong and participated by all different specialties in medicine and jointly organized by around forty medical specialty societies. This conference is aimed to provide a platform for all specialists to update medical information to each other and to facilitate possible cooperation among specialists in different specialties.

This Association is keen to provide medical and health related information to the general public. We have together with the Public Doctors Association launch the Health Education for Lay Public (HELP) project to regularly publish health information as supplied by medical specialists in newspapers, magazines and book titles. As of last year, the HELP has also appeared online and the public can access via mobile apps to the archived health articles. It is aimed that the public can have a convenient channel to obtain useful and correct health education.

Samuel Kwok
President
Association of Private Medical Specialists of Hong Kong