Abstract
The passing of Professor Sir David Todd is a great loss to the local medical community. The Emergency Medicine community in Hong Kong will always remember him as a great teacher and mentor.
Professor Todd had first-hand experience of working in the Casualty (as it was known in the old days). In the Foreword, he wrote for our inaugural issue of the Hong Kong Journal of Emergency Medicine in 1994, he recounted how “In 1952, house officers were on duty at the Casualty Department, Queen Mary Hospital from 8:00 pm to 8:00 am about once a week … While it might have been a happy sojourn and haven for some junior doctors, most did not intend to stay for long.” He also recognized that “Practitioners of emergency medicine form an important team of specialists in the modern practice of medicine.”
The Academy of Medicine was formed in 1993 and Emergency Medicine was not included in the initial disciplines recognized for specialist training. The Hong Kong Society for Emergency Medicine and Surgery thus formed an ad hoc committee to discuss with the Academy to include Emergency Medicine among the Academy Colleges. As we were relatively inexperienced in the process, we had to solicit help from various people. One of the key persons to offer us invaluable guidance was Professor Todd who was the President of the Academy at that time. We met him at the University Medical Unit at Queen Mary Hospital a few times and he kindly listened to our pleas and guided us to the right path. Of course, there were many hurdles to overcome. With the guidance of Professor Todd and his colleagues at the Academy, the Hong Kong College of Emergency Medicine was admitted as one of the Colleges of the Academy in 1997. During the 3 years of preparation and multiple rounds of lobbying, we were indebted to his wise counsel and encouragement without which the process would have been much harder.
In 2006, he wrote a Foreword again for our 10th Anniversary Monograph: From “Casualty to Emergency Medicine—Half a Century of Transformation” and he said The College has accomplished much over the past ten years and is internationally recognized. It represents and promotes a most important specialty. Perhaps, its academic links can be further strengthened and, in the near future, it can train specialists for neighbouring countries as well.
It showed Professor Todd’s wholehearted concern and he was closely observing the development of the Emergency Medicine specialty in Hong Kong. We have had the fortune of meeting him in many other occasions and he was always encouraging.
The Society and College are forever grateful to Professor Todd for his guidance, support, and encouragement throughout the years. He will always be remembered by us as a gentle giant in medicine and a great mentor for the development of Emergency Medicine in Hong Kong.