Guangzhou hosted the third Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Sports Medicine Conference from March 30 to April 1, during which the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Sports Medicine Doctors League was officially founded.

The league aims to strengthen cooperation between Guangdong province, Hong Kong, and Macao in terms of training, education, and research in the area of sports medicine. Guangdong province in particular, hopes to correct its relative weakness in wound healing through learning more about HK's advanced experiences as well as promoting intellectual exchanges on rehabilitation physiotherapy to better serve patients.

Experts across Greater Bay to jointly train grass-roots doctors in Guangdong province

After the establishment of the league, top medical experts across the Greater Bay area will go to grass-roots hospitals to train doctors there, so as to improve the standard of general medical treatment in the region.

"The advanced techniques in HK and Macao could be spread to the Chinese mainland. Guangdong province has a large population, hence our doctors have plentiful clinical experience; doctors in HK and Macao could come here to enrich their experiences accordingly. The medical resources in Macao have been relatively weak and Guangdong has been providing assistance. With the existence of the doctors' league, assistance could now be offered more efficiently,” said Lin Shuguang, director of the Guangdong Medical Doctor Association.

According to Lin, the Guangdong Medical Doctor Association regulates that each of its branches has to train grass-roots doctors twice a year, not only charging no fees but also subsidizing the trainees. Since the construction of the Greater Bay Area started in 2017, around 80 branches of Guangdong Medical Doctor Associations have hosted a total of 254 training sessions, targeting more than 23,000 grass-roots doctors in aggregate.

Roughly three months later, the Guangdong Medical Doctor Association, with the assistance of the newly-founded league, will organize medical doctors across the Greater Bay to conduct its first-ever joint training for grass-roots doctors in Guangdong province, Lin added.

Director of Guangdong Medical Doctor Association Lin Shuguang announces the establishment of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Sports Medicine Doctors League at the third Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Sports Medicine Conference in Guangzhou on Mach 31. [Photo/Xinhua]

HK rehabilitation therapists look to open clinics in Guangdong

Li Weiping, council director of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Sports Medicine Doctors League and director of the sports medicine department at the Guangzhou-based Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, acknowledged the previous successful cooperation between Guangdong, HK, and Macao especially in terms of cultivating younger-generation doctors, saying that, in the past, Guangdong sent a lot of young doctors to study in HK and Macao, cities which boast advanced medical systems and training mechanisms.

Rong Shuheng, vice council director of the league and president of the Hong Kong Orthopedic Association, said that the Chinese mainland, Guangdong in particular, has a large number of patients; nowadays, many HK doctors intern in Guangdong and make rapid progress due to the abundance of opportunities they get to practice medicine.

Rong held that a major task for the league would be to train younger-generation doctors across the Greater Bay area. "Hong Kong could utilize its advantage on internalization to get more international friends involved in this cause," Rong said.

Li believed that Guangdong has accumulated numerous medical cases and has been advancing promptly in sports medicine, but it lacks better platforms. In response, Rong stressed the abundance of international cooperation in Hong Kong. "Through the collaboration within the league, the three places could find ways for mutual benefit and achieve a better research outcome overall," Rong said.

According to Li, the three places have strengths in different aspects of sports medicine. Guangdong takes the lead in China in terms of minimally invasive treatment, HK boasts plentiful experience in rehabilitation therapy, and Macao excels in public health; more exchanges between the three sides are necessary for all-round improvements in the future.

"It is mainly physiotherapists who practice rehabilitation treatments in HK and Macao, while surgeons play the leading role and many people have no idea what physiotherapy is on the Chinese mainland," Rong said, many rehabilitation therapists in HK and Macao want to open clinics in Guangdong and hope for related policies to iron out the barriers.

At the third Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Sports Medicine Conference on Mach 31, several medical experts from across the Greater Bay area accept letters of appointment from Lin Shuguang (M), and become the council members of the  Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Sports Medicine Doctors League. [Photo/Nanfang Plus]