Chinese University of Hong Kong names top surgeon as new head of medical school
- Professor Philip Chiu, currently an associate dean at the faculty of medicine, will take up the position in February next year
- An internationally renowned scholar on upper gastrointestinal surgery, Chiu joined the faculty in 2005
A top surgeon has been named the new head of the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s medical school and is set to take up the position starting in February next year.
The university on Thursday said Professor Philip Chiu Wai-yan, currently an associate dean at the faculty, would succeed Professor Francis Chan Ka-leung, who had served in the position for more than 10 years.
An internationally renowned scholar on upper gastrointestinal surgery, Chiu joined the faculty in 2005. He is chief of the division of upper gastrointestinal and metabolic surgery at the school.
He is the director of the Multi-scale Medical Robotics Centre supported by the government’s InnoHK initiative, and also of the Endoscopy Centre at the university’s Institute of Digestive Disease.
Chiu thanked the university’s search committee and the faculty for their support, and praised Chan’s leadership over the past decade.
He added that he would build on the achievements of his predecessors and further strengthen the faculty’s position as a leading medical school in the region.
“In the coming months, I will be meeting with different stakeholders, actively listening to their expectations and suggestions for the faculty,” he said.
“In the years to come, I will work closely with students, staff, alumni and different sectors of the community to contribute to the health of humankind.”
The university established the search committee in October last year and launched an open global search the following January.
It said the committee unanimously recommended Chiu as the most suitable candidate after considering applications and nominations from around the world.
He was then recommended for the role by the university’s vice-chancellor Rocky Tuan Sung-chi.
Tuan said he was confident that Chiu would make the faculty a stronger global leader when it came to clinical excellence and education.
Chiu performed the first endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) for the treatment of early gastrointestinal cancers in Hong Kong in 2004, and the first peroral endoscopic myotomy, a procedure to treat esophageal motility disorders, in 2010, according to the university.
He also pioneered the world’s first robotic gastric ESD in 2011 and the first robotic colorectal ESD in 2020.
Professor John Chai Yat-chiu, chairman of the university’s governing council, said Chiu was an ideal leader who had a profound understanding of the faculty and the local healthcare system.
“Together with his proven leadership in innovation and technology, I trust [the faculty of medicine] to contribute even more impactfully to opportunities presented by the many Hong Kong innovation and technology initiatives and to scale newer heights in medical education and research for the benefits of mankind,” he said.
