In 2018, I was given the honour by the Macau Director of Health Bureau to set up the Macao Academy of Medicine, in recognition of my previous work with the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine. The purposes are obvious, to enable Macao doctors to follow a structured and unified training that would enhance the practice of medicine in Macao. Although Macao and Hong Kong are both of Chinese heritage and physically separated only by the Pearl River Delta, there are subtle socio-cultural and obvious legal system differences. Strategies and measures that worked in Hong Kong must be adapted and never transplanted to Macao. The legal system differences present as a key challenge as I never have any formal legal training. Apart from differences in common law and statute law, there are subtle differences in the Basic Law such that professional standard setting bodies must reside within the government machinery. That dictates the Academy has to be part of the Health Bureau. There are certainly benefits as well as limitations with this practice. Gratitude must be accorded to the Director who is making every effort to keep an arm’s length from us to ensure the Academy’s actual and perceived autonomy of decision making powers. The support from the Director and the Macao government has made the set-up work easier. In addition, a lot of “change” management are encountered as individual hospitals in fact were having some kinds of individual training all along. With the collaboration of all parties, the Macao Academy was officially inaugurated on 13th July 2019 with over three hundred doctors being admitted as First Fellows. As at today, we have set up 40 training programmes and accredited the related training units. The first batch of doctors under the new training system will be admitted soon and that would be an exciting moment.
