200 Congregation booklet_1701_Final

4 it first than risk putting MBBS as the top preference, with the attendant uncertainty of the JUPAS computer algorithm should they go unmatched in their A1 choice. This is of course entirely rational behaviour. On the other hand, for high, but not the top, scorers on the other end of the spectrum, with the expanded “flexibility” of a second rebranded course from our sister institution, a full year of study could be waived. Thus it comes down to choosing between a five- vs six-year degree course, both of which lead to the same license to practise medicine, albeit we strongly believe via quite different experiential routes. Our sister school’s special programme was supposed to have been a very “elite” offering reserved for a small number of high scorers that is now admitting one-fifth of their entire freshman cohort. Quite how the oversight authorities, including the Education Bureau, Medical Council of Hong Kong and the University Grants Committee apparently acquiesce to this is difficult to fathom. Despite, actually because of, this manifestly unlevel playing field, we plough on and are motivated to do even better for our students. I am pleased to report that the first ever enrichment year has gone off to a great start this September. Rather than rhyming off statistics, let me play you a short clip comprising student narrators vlogging what and how they have been doing so far. I cannot be more enthusiastic or proud of what they are achieving and am certain that in time they will bring to the profession fresh, value-added perspectives from the education they are receiving at HKU. One must be doing something right when one’s competitor now brands its “optional” year as a “personalised enrichment year” – imitation is indeed the best form of flattery. Ladies and gentlemen, you are bearing witness to the transformation of the medical profession because of the universal enrichment we are affording all our students as we began renewing our curriculum on our 130th anniversary. We are socially minded elites of the 21st century. Privilege should not continue accruing to those who have always benefitted from clubby institutional arrangements. Any talk of “brotherhood” or “sisterhood” based on high school ties is at best anachronistic and potentially discriminatory. That recipe has led to the Age of Anger. The tide of history will wash away those who still cling onto such notions. We require our students to be open to each other and to the world around them. In turn we reward them with unprecedented opportunities to grow and excel. This is what a HKU education is about, starting right where the University itself began life, in Medicine. On the MBBS curriculum, we just completed another quinquennial accreditation by the Medical Council last month. I look forward to reporting the panel’s findings when they become available next year. Meantime, we are making a renewed effort to decongest the curriculum – a Sisyphean task that has plagued the best schools the world over given the exponential explosion of new knowledge and additional competencies that are demanded of doctors. There are no sacred cows because we need to make room for new, necessary topics such as a panoromic approach to understanding health, illness and disease, and how big data and artificial intelligence will fundamentally change medical practice. We are also taking a hard look at assessment, which is all the more important given that our students are not required to sit public qualifying examinations for licensure. More specifically, every question will be robustly mapped to pre-defined learning outcomes that are tagged to each learning activity. Students will be debriefed within one month of every major exam and a personalised report indicating satisfactory achievement or lacunae in different competencies will be issued so as to guide remediation and further learning. A third and final plank of our teaching and learning reform is to make the curriculum truly student-centred, beyond the usual rhetoric. I have tasked the T&L deanery with fully staffing the learners’ wellbeing team, redeploying and retraining all staff whose daily function is to serve the student body in various ways, as well as counselling and if necessary disciplining even the most senior professors should they put their needs above those of our charge. Not only is this good pedagogy; it is consistent with our Confucian and Hippocratic heritage. Medicine is after all a lifelong apprenticeship where the adage “do one, see one, teach one” still holds. What we do to our students today they will pattern after when they become leaders of the profession. We must allow them to begin their professional careers learning the right habits and feeling cared for and nurtured. This is however not carte blanche for students to do whatever they wish. Part of becoming a responsible adult professional is to learn how to behave appropriately, particularly when there is disagreement or in controversial situations. Ask any student who has attended the “Meet the Dean” sessions usually held at the beginning of each academic year and you will know that I care deeply about constantly improving their learning experience,