Unfazed by dirty work, Hong Kong university infectious disease doctor leads frontline fight against Covid-19
- Dr Anthony Tam says sense of duty led him to working with coronavirus patients when outbreak started
- University of Hong Kong graduate hopes to follow in footsteps of mentor and become an expert in chosen field
When Dr Anthony Tam trained as an infectious disease specialist in Hong Kong he could scarcely have imagined he would be fighting a once-in-a-generation pandemic just three years later.
A discipline that boasts only 30 practising specialists in the city, and traditionally attracts the academically brightest, Tam said his education gave him a sense of duty to join the “dirty team”, and work in Covid-19 isolation wards when the virus hit the city at the start of the year.
“The responsibility has fallen onto me. I had to do it,” the 30-year-old said. “I know more about infectious diseases than some others. If I don’t set a good example, it’d be hard to persuade other colleagues to do it.
“But it was daunting, the virus has only just emerged in the world. We didn’t know how infectious or deadly it could be.”
His first patients were a pair of tourists from mainland China who were among the first in the world to be diagnosed with Covid-19.