The development of Western medicine in Hong Kong to its current sophisticated state over more than 150 years is a fascinating story. And this book tells the above history from a special perspective—the personalities responsible for this remarkable achievement.
These individuals, spanning over a period of over 150 years, comprised doctors in government public medical and health services who advocated new initiatives and laid the infrastructure; those who established health policies, and moved the health system forward; the medical educators who trained the medical workforce and generated new medical knowledge through their research; practising doctors, who not only delivered medical care but also offered their free services in education and social welfare; and pioneer female doctors before and after World War II who struggled their ways to the medical world and shined on their own specialties. The story of each doctor in this book is narrated in the context of the complex political, social, and economic backdrop of his/her time.
While these doctors from diverse backgrounds lived in different eras and engaged in different branches of medicine, they were strikingly similar in several aspects: their dedication to serving the community and their tireless labor to achieve their aim at times under adverse conditions, leaving their mark in the history of medicine in Hong Kong.

Dr. Wong Tai-wai is a specialist in Emergency Medicine and is currently working as a part time consultant in a public hospital and an Honorary Associate Professor of the Emergency Medicine Unit of the University of Hong Kong. He has published over 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals and served as editor and senior editor of the Hong Kong Medical Journal. He co-authored a book on a notable medical family with Dr. Moira M. W. Chan-Yeung: The Yu Family: A Century of Medical Excellence. His edited works included: From “Casualty” to Emergency Medicine: Half a Century of Transformation, From Breadth to Depth: 2 Decades of Advancement in Emergency Medicine, and Footprints of Medicine: From the Collections of HK Museum of Medical Sciences. He has also written several books in Chinese in relation to the life and work of emergency physicians.

Dr. Moira M. W. Chan-Yeung (1939–2024) was Emeritus Professor of Medicine, University of British Columbia and Honorary Professor of Medicine, the University of Hong Kong. She had over 40 years of experience in research and scholarship. She published 400 peer-reviewed scientific articles. Since retiring as a physician, she had turned her interest to researching and writing medical and nonmedical histories. She published 8 such books including the three volumes of medical history by the Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. She also contributed articles regularly to the “Reminiscence: Artefacts from The Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences” section of the Hong Kong Medical Journal.