Pen portraits: Pastimes

Sporting passion provides an early taste of hospital life

Dr Leung had some of his earliest experiences of hospitals from his love of football. He was centre-forward and captain of his school team. Yet he ended up injured a number of times and rushed to the Accident and Emergency Department of Tang Shiu Kin Hospital. “I once met the nurse at the hospital who treated me when I was a young football player,” he says.

Apart from sport, Dr Leung’s passions include watching Indian movies and reading management books. Among his favourite films are 3 Idiots and Billu Barber. “Indian movies bring sensitive social topics and motivating stories to the big screen,” he says. “They are educational and inspirational.” Dr Leung says TV dramas bring new ideas to him at work too. For instance, the Hong Kong Children’s Hospital project ‘Dress Well’ had patients’ clothes printed with cartoon characters after getting the idea from the Korean drama Good Doctor.

The advantages of standing tall in sport

Dr Ko is also passionate about football despite his mediocre skills, he mocks. But at 6 ft 1, Dr Ko who played centre-forward clearly has an advantage over opponents at football. He skips past defenders with an unusual combination of his height and agility. “Also, I joined the school basketball team and played centre-forward and in defence because I am tall,” he explains.

Dr Ko loves reading histories and biographies, in particular books about former US general and president Dwight Eisenhower and the Second World War, a period he says demonstrated both the brutality and beauty of human nature. “History is a mirror which reflects the reasons for the rise and fall of an authority,” he says. “History is also a textbook which shows us many management philosophies. Reading allows us to analyse a situation from different angles. For example, people usually study the Second World War from the Anglo-American perspective, but the book The Other Side of the Hill was written after the author visited German soldiers. The perspective is quite different and helps people understand the other side of the story.”