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Taking Hong Kong Surgery to the World

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130 Years of Medicine in Hong Kong

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Abstract

G.B. Ong, born in Sarawak, became the first ethnic Chinese to head the Department of Surgery in 1964. He and his successor, John Wong, took Hong Kong surgery to the world, though in different ways. Ong was a general surgeon who was “as comfortable with intricate brain surgery as with the brutality of limb amputation.” He generated worldwide interest by such imaginative procedures as removing a diseased esophagus and maneuvering the stomach up to the neck. His successor, Wong, who led the department for a quarter century, emphasized the need for specialization. The shortage of cadaveric donors led the department to pioneer adult right living donor liver transplantation in the 1990s, a revolutionary procedure that transplants part of a living donor’s liver into a liver patient. Ong and Wong in succession built the Department of Surgery into the highly respected body that it is today.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Hong Kong University Archives. Sir Lindsay Ride , Correspondence 34/264.

  2. 2.

    Minutes of the Senate, University of Hong Kong, 4 February 1964.

  3. 3.

    Minutes of the Council, University of Hong Kong, 20 February 1964.

  4. 4.

    Minutes of the Council, University of Hong Kong, 19 March 1964. The Council approved a request from Dr. G.B. Ong that his appointment be on Terms of Service ‘A’ and his place of permanent home be agreed as Sarawak.

  5. 5.

    G.B. Ong , “Development of Surgery in Hong Kong,” unpublished manuscript kept in G.B. Ong Library at the University of Hong Kong.

  6. 6.

    Vice Chancellor Robinson to Registrar, 7 July 1966. Hong Kong University Archives, vice chancellor’s unnumbered series, Surgery 1958–66.

  7. 7.

    Excerpt from the Vice-Chancellor’s Address delivered at the Honorary University Fellowships Presentation Ceremony on December 2, 1999. 1999 Honorary University Fellow, Douglas Laing.

  8. 8.

    Jane Parry, “Guan Bee Ong ” obituary, British Medical Journal, 27 Mar 2004; 328(7442): 771.

  9. 9.

    Eulogy by George Choa, “Professor Tan Sri Guan Bee Ong ,” HKU Convocation Newsletter Spring 2004, 25.

  10. 10.

    N.G. Patil, “Our Renowned Graduate, Guan Bee ONG,” Medical Faculty News 2004, Vol 9, Issue 1:2–3.

  11. 11.

    George Choa Eulogy.

  12. 12.

    Harry Fang Sinyang, Rehabilitation: A Life’s Work (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2002), 26–27.

  13. 13.

    Patrick P. Sim, “A Measure of Gold: Hong Kong Anaesthesia at 50,” Anaesthesiology, Vol. 107 (2007), 153–160.

  14. 14.

    Z. Lett, Anaesthesia in Hong Kong: Evolution and Present Position (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong, Centre of Asian Studies), 1982, 8.

  15. 15.

    G. B. Ong , “A Study of 200 Cases of Appendicitis,” Bulletin of the Hong Kong Chinese Medical Association 6 (1954):8–22.

  16. 16.

    G.B. Ong , “The Surgical Treatment of Oesophageal Cancer,” Bulletin of the Hong Kong Chinese Medical Association 8 (1956):53–60.

  17. 17.

    G.B. Ong , “Surgical Treatment of Oesophageal Carcinoma: Personal Experience of 112 Cases,” British Journal of Surgery, 51, no. 1, (1964).

  18. 18.

    Harry Fang Sinyang with Lawrence Jeffery, Rehabilitation: A Life’s Work, (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2002), 59–60.

  19. 19.

    A.R. Hodgson , F.E. Stock, H.S.Y. Fang and G.B. Ong , “Anterior Spinal Fusion: The Operative Approach and Pathological Findings in 412 Patients with Pott’s Disease of the Spine”, British Journal of Surgery, Volume 48, issue 208, (1960):172–178.

  20. 20.

    Harry S.Y. Fang and G.B. Ong , “Direct Anterior Approach to the Upper Cervical Spine”, Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery Am, 1962 Dec; 44 (8):1588–1604.

  21. 21.

    Ibid.

  22. 22.

    G.B. Ong and T.C. Lee, “Pharyngogastric anastomosis after oesophago-pharyngectomy for carcinoma of the hypopharynx and cervical oesophagus”, British Journal of Surgery, Volume 48, issue 208, (1960):193–200.

  23. 23.

    C.H. Leong , The Hong Kong Surgical Society in “Healing with the Scalpel: From the First Colonial Surgeon to the College of Surgeons of Hong Kong.” (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Academy of Medicine Press, 2010):101–102.

  24. 24.

    C.H. Leong, 88.

  25. 25.

    Ibid., 88.

  26. 26.

    C.H. Leong , “The Hong Kong Surgical Society” in Healing with the Scalpel: From the First Colonial Surgeon to the College of Surgeons of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Academy of Medicine Press, 2010):85–105.

  27. 27.

    Ibid, 97.

  28. 28.

    G.B. Ong , Southeast Asian Journal of Surgery, Vol. 1, No. 1, July 1978, 3.

  29. 29.

    Growing with Hong Kong: the University and Its Graduates: the first 50 Years. (Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong, 2002), 104.

  30. 30.

    C.H. Leong, 92.

  31. 31.

    Helen M. Dingwall, A Famous and Flourishing Society: The History of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, 1505–2005, Edinburgh University Press, 2005, 239.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., 237.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., 239.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., 263, footnote 62.

  35. 35.

    G.B. Ong, “Colocystoplasty for Bladder Carcinoma after Radical Total Cystectomy,” Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 1970 Jun;46(6):320–37.

  36. 36.

    G.B. Ong , ““Resection and Reconstruction of the Esophagus,” Current Problems in Surgery, Volume 8, Issue 9, September 1971:3–56.

  37. 37.

    John Wong, “Surgery for Cancer of the Oesophagus: The G.B. Ong Legacy,” Annals of the College of Surgeons of Hong Kong, Vol. 7 (2003), B18–B20.

  38. 38.

    Z. Lett, Obituary, Professor Tan Sri G.B. Ong , OBE, DSc, MD, FRCS, FACS, M.S. Academy Focus, Spring 2004. Hong Kong Academy of Medicine newsletter.

  39. 39.

    Note from Prof. John Wong, 17 August 2016.

  40. 40.

    Hong Kong’s organ donation rate ranked among the lowest in the world, at 5.8 donors for every million residents, South China Morning Post, 21 September 2016. “Pupils to be given teaching materials on organ donation,” p. C1.

  41. 41.

    “Plarr’s Lives of the Fellows Online,” Royal College of Surgeons of England. http://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/biogs/E000390b.htm

  42. 42.

    Jane Parry, “Guan Bee Ong,” British Medical Journal 2004 Mar 27; 328(7442): 771.

  43. 43.

    C.H. Leong , p. 98.

  44. 44.

    Interview with Professor Lo Chung-mau, 31 August, 2016.

  45. 45.

    John Wong note.

  46. 46.

    Details of apprehension and detention of Lee and Wong were provided by Patrick Yu, a barrister who represented the corporal accused of murder in the case, see Patrick Yu Shuk-siu, A Seventh Child and the Law (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1998), 203–217.

  47. 47.

    Patrick Yu Shuk-siu , 206–207.

  48. 48.

    Arthur K.C. Li, The Legacy of Professor G.B. Ong, Annals of the College of Surgeons of Hong Kong, (2004) 8 67–70.

  49. 49.

    Che-Hung Leong, “Editorial,” Annals of the College of Surgeons of Hong Kong 7 (2003): Supplement 2.

  50. 50.

    G.B. Ong , unpublished manuscript, see note 5.

  51. 51.

    Lo CM, Fan ST, et al. Ann Surg 1997; 226: 261–270.

  52. 52.

    “The Champion of Excellence: John Wong,” Festschrift 2015.

  53. 53.

    Ibid.

  54. 54.

    “The Champion of Excellence,” Foreword by C.M. Lo.

  55. 55.

    South China Morning Post, 20 April 2012.

  56. 56.

    Ibid.

  57. 57.

    Personal discussion with Professor Lo Chung-mau on 31 August 2016.

  58. 58.

    James Cantlie, “On a New Arrangement of the Right and Left Lobe of the Liver,” Journal of Anatomy and Physiology 32 (1897): iv–ix.

  59. 59.

    Interview with Lo 31 August 2016.

  60. 60.

    Adult-to-Adult Living Donor Liver Transplantation Using Extended Right Lobe Grafts, Annals of Surgery (226) September 1997, 261–270.

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    Frank Ching

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Ching, F. (2018). Taking Hong Kong Surgery to the World. In: 130 Years of Medicine in Hong Kong. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6316-9_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6316-9_11

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