Two essences in surgical knowledge transfer

Cheung Tsz-ho
Advanced Practice Nurse
Caritas Medical Centre

Advanced Practice Nurse Cheung Tsz-ho, also the leader of the orthopaedic nursing team, is approaching his 13th year in the field. Genuine and caring, he is keen to share his knowledge with newcomers, and always concerns himself with patients’ well-being. His dedication to enhancing patient care has made him a model to learn from.

He expresses that training up a professional nurse at the operating theatre might take at least four to five year because a qualified nurse should be equipped with sufficient knowledge in the respective medical field. They should be capable of coping with any emergency during surgery as well as operating different surgical instruments. Having regard to such demands, he has designed innovative training tools, such as personal cue cards, to enhance anaesthesia medical safety. To encourage staff development, he assigns challenging yet value-adding tasks according to their capabilities and needs. Department and cross-cluster training such as simulation training and surgical demonstrations, as well as overseas training, are also arranged regularly to enable the sharing of knowledge among staff. In his spare time, he also provides training to the local and foreign medical staff at specialist institutions.

Tsz-ho always has the welfare of patients at heart. “Though the time we can spend with patients is short, we strive to provide the best care.” As a man who acts upon words, he empathises with patients to comfort them by explaining the surgical procedures in detail. His compassion is also boundless that he assisted in performing surgeries on local patients with Red Cross voluntary team after the Sichuan earthquake in 2008. ‘Not to be served but to serve’ has always been his motto, as he believes those who are more capable should undertake greater responsibility. Always keeping his words has established him as an impactful teacher.