Autumn Issue, 2017

First Hong Kong surgeon to receive Top Global Paediatric Surgery Award Professor Paul Tam 譚廣亨 (MBBS 1976), Chair of Paediatric Surgery and Li Shu-Pui Professor in Surgery, was presented the Denis Browne Gold Medal at the British Association of Paediatric Surgeons (BAPS) Congress in July 2017. The award is made annually to a surgeon who has made outstanding contributions to paediatric surgery worldwide. Professor Tam is the first surgeon from Hong Kong and the fourth from Asia to be honoured with the Medal since its inception in 1968. Professor Tam currently serves as the University’s Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor. He is particularly interested in minimally invasive surgery, genetics, and regenerative medicine for birth defects such as Hirschsprung’s disease. In addition, he also leads a number of projects that develop paediatric surgery in less affluent communities. Professor Tam is particularly gratified to have led a number of projects in developing paediatric surgery in less affluent communities especially in China in the past two decades. He has also nurtured a generation of over 2000 paediatric surgeons in China through a training programme with far-reaching impact. He played a key role in bringing Karolinska Institutet, the academic home for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, to establish its only footprint outside Sweden in Hong Kong. “I accept the award both with humility and on behalf of all those associated with me. For this is not a personal recognition but rather a recognition of my family, colleagues, mentors, students, friends, peers and patients. While I cannot hope to inspire the next generation of paediatric surgeons the way those giants of the past generation inspired me, I hope my experience in one form or another can encourage my younger colleagues to enjoy and advance the specialty we all love and care about.” Professor Paul Tam Professor Paul Tam (left) receiving the Denis Browne Gold Medal from Contessa Rosemary Lanza, daughter of Sir Denis Browne (right) and Professor Mark Davenport, President of BAPS Rachel Yiu 姚詩韻 , a PhD student of Professor Tam, also received the Peter Paul Rickham Prize for the best basic science paper at the BAPS Congress Photo: The British Association of Paediatric Surgeons 44