Summer Issue, 2013

17 On Campus For example, we were aware of our inadequacies in the humanities. We therefore cofounded the Centre for the Humanities and Medicine with the Faculty of Arts. We knew our ignorance in the study of law. We then cofounded, with the Faculty of Law, the Centre of Medical Ethics and Law. These two platforms informed well the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine how to teach you in the medical humanities and ethics, thus helping to enrich and strengthen our curriculum. We have also tried multi-disciplinary, inter- and trans-disciplinary education, early clinical contact; and there are many things in evolution such as experiential learning, e-learning, academic advising, edX, mass online open courses (MOOC) - teaching to the magnitude of a million learners. Thinking, learning and education would never be the same. The teacher and the student I did clinical bed-side teaching and I taught first year students in Problem-based Learning. The first class that I taught will graduate with me this year. I know that my students might feel that the Dean and the Dean’s mind could be quite distant and irrelevant to them. I can understand that. But little do they know that I think of them often. In fact, I think of them much much more than they would ever realise. I wish that my DNA or bit of my DNA would break off and integrate with theirs. You see we think of our students, not only because they are studying with us, but that they are our future and they are inextricably part of us. Travelling on a road less taken You and I are fellow travellers on this journey we called life. We take the same path. It’s just that I have travelled a little farther away. In travelling, you should always keep a dose of humility. You should always be aware that your past and your future are also travelling with you at the same time. You need to learn a great deal from your past otherwise you would not understand why you are here as you are. Without that, there is no hope for you to predict the future. The second rule about travelling is you need to take good care of yourself. You know these few years, under this roof on Sassoon Road, what would you miss? Time will pass. Time will expire, irreversibly, irrevocably. And then what would you miss and remember, apart from those hauntingly heart-breakingly beautiful sunsets on Sassoon Road? “The child is father of the man” William Wordsworth